MAURICE  MAETERLINCK 
A  STUDY 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

A  Study 


BY 


MONTROSE  J.  MOSES 


DUFFIELD  &  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK 

1911 


Copyright,  1911,  by 
Duffield&Co. 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
SANTA  BARBARA 


TO  MY  WIFE 

DOROTHY 


'HE  WHO  SEES  WITHOUT  LOVING  IS  ONLY  STRAINING 
HIS  EYES  IN  THE  DARK." 


CONTENTS 

I  FOREWORD  .....       i 

I  MAETERLINCK,  THE  MAN    .         .     23 

II  MAETERLINCK,  THE  POET    .         .     57 

III  DRAMATIC  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE    89 

IV  THE  MARIONETTE  DRAMAS  .   125 

V    THE    FURTHER    PRACTICE    OF    A 

THEORY  ....   163 

VI     THE     ETERNAL     FEMININE     AND 

MAETERLINCK'S  LATER  PLAYS     .  201 

VII     MAETERLINCK'S  MORAL  THEATRE    243 

VIII    MAURICE  MAETERLINCK:  PHILOSO- 
PHER        277 

APPENDIX  A I 

APPENDIX  B          .        ..         .         .         .     13 


An  old  French  Scientist  once  said: 

"/«  research  work,  you  must  use  the  utmost  care, 
or  you  will  find  what  you  are  looking  for." 


FOREWORD 


'"PHE  value  of  Maurice  Maeterlinck  is 
•I  much  more  in  the  fact  of  his  aliveness 
than  in  the  direct  force  of  his  originality. 
He  senses  life  in  every  outward  detail,  and 
throws  away  the  husk  of  physical  experi- 
ence as  soon  as  he  has  translated  conscious- 
ness into  conscience,  and  matter  into  spirit. 
In  his  observation  and  in  his  later  expres- 
sion of  opinion,  he  is  the  philosopher  of 
change,  but  even  though  his  position  may 
be  transitory,  he  is  in  search  of  the  con- 
stant factors  of  life.  He  looks  outward 
from  within,  he  looks  downward  from 
above.  He  is  aloof,  despite  the  fact  that 
he  touches  humanity  at  all  points. 

Such  a  writer  is  not  only  needful  in  a 
time  like  the  present,  with  its  materialistic 
considerations,  but  he  is  moulded  by  the 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

very  conditions  which  he  least  resembles. 
The  world  has  never  been  without  such  a 
thinker;  Maurice  Maeterlinck  is  but  one 
of  a  long  line  of  seers,  beginning  with 
Plato  and  culminating  in  Emerson.  He  is 
as  much  a  part  of  Emerson  as  Poe  is  a  part 
of  the  romanticism  of  France,  and  strange 
to  say,  there  is  not  much  in  the  Maeter- 
linck of  the  present  to  stamp  him  with  the 
Gallic  spirit. 

His  contemplation  early  led  him  to 
brooding,  to  a  haunting  sense  of  fear,  of 
decay,  of  powerless  subservience  to  des- 
tiny. All  life  was  brought  by  him  into 
bondage  for  the  championship  of  death; 
the  very  external  mechanism  of  his  stage, 
in  his  "marionette"  plays,  cast  gruesome 
shadows  akin  to  the  morbidness  of  Poe. 
Maeterlinck  may  have  created  a  new  shud- 
der from  what  Richard  Hovey  calls  "the 
limitation  of  his  emotional  range,"  but  the 
cause  for  this  did  not  lie  deeper  than  the 
outward  expressions  of  Nature  which  he 

2 


Foreword 

used  with  amazing  effect  to  produce  a  pe- 
culiar and  distinctive  atmosphere. 

Maeterlinck  is  a  man  of  the  open;  he  is 
healthful  and  health-giving,  and  he  has 
never  wilfully  kept  his  eye  upon  the  can- 
ker-worm. In  this  respect,  he  is  the  oppo- 
site of  Henrik  Ibsen.  The  latter  never 
changed;  he  varied  now  and  again;  but  he 
rather  deepened  his  conviction  than  alter- 
ed it.  In  every  respect  is  Maeterlinck  sub- 
ject to  evolution;  he  is  constantly  shifting 
his  base.  But  he  is  doing  this,  not  in  order 
to  discomfort  his  readers,  but  in  order 
to  place  himself  upon  a  more  serene  basis 
in  his  search  after  the  highest  truth.  Only 
in  so  far  as  he  disturbs  himself  may  he  be 
called  a  revolutionary,  a  disillusionizer. 
His  writings  are  simply  expressions  of  his 
thinking  aloud.  There  is  no  design  in 
them,  except  in  so  far  as  they  mark  the 
transit  of  an  individual  deeply  concerned 
about  the  hidden  forces  of  existence. 

In  his  youth,  Maeterlinck  was  part  of  a 
3 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

literary  movement  that  was  effeminate,  and 
he  was  dedicated  to  a  beauty  which  kills 
and  to  a  sense  devotion  which  weakens. 
The  school  was  decadent,  but  Maeterlinck 
escaped  its  influence — not,  however,  before 
he  had  given  expression  in  its  image.  After 
he  deserted  law  definitely  for  the  field  of 
literature,  his  development  may  be  con- 
sistently followed,  and  to  understand 
Maurice  Maeterlinck  aright,  it  is  necessary 
to  trace  his  progression  from  speculation 
upon  death  to  glorification  of  life;  from 
subservience  before  destiny  to  the  recogni- 
tion of  a  will  transcending  destiny;  from  a 
belief  in  agnosticism  to  the  realization  of 
a  justice  above  the  justice  of  man. 

There  is  a  danger  in  dwelling  upon  the 
heights.  The  realist  has  this  much  in  his 
favour;  that  he  breathes  the  same  atmos- 
phere as  living  men  and  women;  that  he 
knows  their  happiness  and  their  pain;  that 
he  sees  them  in  daily  activity  and  feels 
them  by  actual  contact.  Maeterlinck's  ob- 
4 


Foreword 

servation  Is  of  a  different  stratum ;  his  men 
and  women  are  many  degrees  removed 
from  earth.  He  hears  the  roar  of  cities 
at  the  mountain's  base,  and  he  cares  only 
for  humanity  in  the  spiritual  mass.  His 
problem  is  to  raise  that  mass  to  the  heights 
from  which  he  looks  beyond, 

When  he  first  began  writing  for  the 
theatre,  he  attempted  to  apply  his  philo- 
sophical theories  to  a  faint  impressionism 
of  life.  He  learned,  when  he  first  began 
to  write  poetry,  that  repetition  was  effect- 
ive in  creating  psychological  response,  in 
building  up  an  emotional  atmosphere. 
This  repetition  entered  into  the  dialogue 
of  his  "marionette"  dramas  to  such  an  ex- 
tent that  Nordau  called  it  Ollendorfian, 
and  people  smiled  over  the  dots  and  dashes 
of  the  unexpressed,  which  deluged  his 
printed  page. 

It  is  somewhat  difficult  at  times  to  de- 
termine whether  or  not  Maeterlinck  is 
more  interested  in  the  forces  of  life  than 
5 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

in  life  itself.  His  whole  conception  ofl 
static  drama — almost  a  contradiction  of 
terms — was  based  on  that  quiescence  of  the1 
visible  and  on  that  recognition  of  the  active 
spirit  subservient  to  destiny,  which  are 
least  likely  to  become  reconciled  to  the 
stage.  But  though  Maeterlinck  set  him- 
self almost  an  impossible  task,  according 
to  the  conventions  of  the  theatre,  his  ad- 
herence to  the  inner  life  necessitated  his 
use  of  a  stage  technique  which  is  his  one 
large  and  original  contribution  to  the  the- 
atre. This  is  the  opposite  pole  from  Ib- 
sen's close  treatment  of  things  as  they  are. 
It  was  a  trick  which  Maeterlinck  invented 
in  order  to  create  atmosphere — the  skil- 
ful use  of  the  powers  of  suggestion  which 
make  imminent  the  unseeable  amidst  the 
things  we  see. 

Maeterlinck  is  now  essentially  strong, 

but  he  is  limited  by  the  heights  to  which 

he  soars;  he  is  circumscribed  by  the  depths 

from  which  he  becomes  conscious  of  life. 

6 


Foreword 

His  poetic  nature  has  uppermost  control, 
but  this  in  turn  is  enriched  by  a  certain  in- 
terest in  the  latest  manifestations  of 
science.  This  interest  may  not  be  strictly 
scientific,  but  it  is  equally  as  accurate  in  its 
process  as  Ibsen's  rather  false  treatment 
of  heredity,  and  is  even  more  effective  in 
its  results  upon  audiences.  He  is  a  man 
of  wide  interests,  so  wide  that  critics  have 
accused  him  of  lacking  constancy  in  point 
of  view,  of  being  only  a  partial  philoso- 
pher of  a  social  organism  about  which  he 
speculates  in  pseudo-scientific  fashion. 

In  truth,  Maeterlinck  sentimentalizes 
the  facts  of  life.  He  makes  use  of  histori- 
cal incident,  but  he  loses  historical  per- 
spective in  generalizations.  This  is  the 
romanticist's  method,  and  though  he  con- 
stantly exhibits  evidences  of  his  aliveness, 
we  doubt  whether  he  could  ever  produce  a 
drama  of  modern  condition  and  of  im- 
mediate problematic  significance.  No  man 
of  his  serene  temperament  could  hastily 
7 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

discard  the  manifestations  by  which  we 
measure  life,  but  he  dwells  apart  from 
them  as  continuously  as  possible.  He 
brings  what  he  touches  to  its  highest  point 
of  cultivation  in  order  that  it  may  mani- 
fest a  spirit  as  large  as  its  growth  allows. 
In  his  garden,  among  the  flowers  and  bees, 
he  is  always  fathoming  the  laws  govern- 
ing perfection;  in  his  theatre,  he  is  always 
trying  how  far  the  unseen  may  be  felt  with- 
in the  form  beneath  which  it  masquerades. 
He  is  philosopher  of  the  inner  life,  but  his 
seemingly  static,  contemplative  philosophy 
is  pregnant  with  disturbing  elements  which 
either  require  a  firm  faith  to  withstand  or 
else  tend  to  make  faith  firm  in  its  individ- 
ual search  for  truth. 

Where  Maeterlinck  will  tend,  it  is  not 
my  object  to  show  in  this  book.  That  he 
is  necessary  to  the  age  is  unquestioned,  and 
that  he  has  a  message  and  a  method  is  like- 
wise indisputable.  Incident  in  his  life  is 
not  so  important  as  state  of  mind.  A  con- 
8 


Foreword 

templative  man  is  active,  not  in  the  out- 
ward obligations  which  distract,  but  in  the 
solitary  communings  while  he  is  in  the 
open.  For  the  picture  we  have  of  Maurice 
Maeterlinck  is  not  that  of  a  writer  buried 
among  books  in  his  library,  but  of  an  ath- 
lete in  a  boat,  on  a  bicycle,  or  in  a  motor 
car.  Only  a  few  hours  are  spent  at  his 
desk;  the  bulk  of  his  thinking  is  done  while 
he  is  indulging  himself  in  his  garden  spec- 
ulations. For  though  Maeterlinck's  inter- 
est in  Nature  may  not  be  literally  correct, 
he  extracts  that  which  is  necessary  for 
reaching  many  principles  governing  human 
life;  flowers  hold  the  key  to  the  secret  of 
passion;  bees  exhibit  the  workings  of  a 
complete  commonwealth.  Nothing  es- 
capes his  observation,  and  no  expression 
comes  from  him  that  does  not  attempt  to 
make  that  observation  active,  that  does  not 
seek  to  apply  what  he  has  learned  to  com- 
mon experience. 

Maeterlinck's      essential      significance, 
9 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

therefore,  is  to  be  found  in  his  wide  appli- 
cation to  all  modern  problems.  One  mo- 
ment he  is  a  transcendentalist;  another  a 
pragmatist.  He  compliments  the  average 
man  by  speaking  as  though  their  planes  of 
existence  were  identical.  In  this  respect, 
he  is  like  Browning  who  never  fully  real- 
ized that  his  obscurity — clear  in  his  own 
mind — was  not  so  clear  to  others.  But  I 
have  an  idea  that  Maeterlinck,  now  at  the 
prime  of  life,  will  some  day  discover  laws 
nearer  the  cities  of  men,  even  as  he  gradu- 
ally proved  to  himself  the  unfeasibleness 
of  his  static  drama.  And  as  well  it  may  be 
said  that  the  world  in  which  he  finds  him- 
self is  gradually  coming  to  realize  that 
what  Maeterlinck  seeks  in  himself  as  a  hu- 
man being  is  not  alone  peculiar  to  himself 
but  to  all  of  us.  Maeterlinck  forces  us  to 
think  on  subjects  as  old  as  the  ages,  and  he 
possesses  the  art  of  reviving  the  ancient 
arguments  by  attaching  the  old  philosophy 
10 


Foreword 

to  new  and  timely  subjects.     He  is  a  con- 
temporaneous dreamer. 

Constant  association  with  such  art,  with 
such  supersensitive  arrangement  of  uni- 
versal forces,  may  result  in  profound  vis- 
ion, but  it  is  opened  to  the  charge  of  nar- 
rowness, however  pure  and  elevated  it  may 
be.  Maeterlinck  translates  all  character 
into  delicate  symbols  of  spiritual  princi- 
ples, and  he  used  to  place  phantom  individ- 
uals in  an  atmosphere  heavy  with  roman- 
ticism. Though  he  seems  to  have  escaped 
a  faint  impressionism  when  he  reached 
"Monna  Vanna,"  he  did  not  desert  the 
past  in  his  choice  of  subject.  He  may  have 
now  grown  slightly  self-conscious  in  his 
theatre  work,  for  though  "Joyzelle"  con- 
tains much  of  his  former  symbolism,  and 
while  "The  Blue  Bird,"  despite  its  mys- 
tic quality,  has  all  the  definiteness  of  a 
fairy  story,  his  "Mary  Magdalene"  fails 
to  combine  the  best  qualities  of  his  own 
spiritual  treatment,  or  of  that  dynamic 
ii 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

technique  which  Madame  Maeterlinck  is 
said  to  have  developed  in  him. 

If,  as  his  essays  suggest,  Maeterlinck  is 
alive  to  the  current  of  modern  progress, 
why  is  it  he  so  persistently  avoids  the  lo- 
cale of  contemporaneous  life?  Is  his  phi- 
losophy so  filmy,  so  lacking  in  substance, 
that  it  cannot  abide  the  touch  of  common 
incident?  It  was  Mr.  Archer,  I  believe, 
who  persistently  quarreled  with  Maeter- 
linck for  his  constant  employment  of  Na- 
ture at  her  most  violent,  most  grotesque 
moments.  But  Maeterlinck's  philosophy 
has  aided  him  in  escaping  all  this;  in  his 
effort  to  span  the  gulf  between  the  known 
and  the  unknown,  he  has  found  it  necessary 
to  be  explicit  in  detail  and  solid  in  charac- 
teristics. Life  does  not  continually  flow 
behind  a  veil  of  dubiousness  and  blindness. 

Despite  his  sensitiveness  to  influence, 
our  poet — for  he  is  a  poet  philosophizing 
rather  than  a  philosopher  poetizing — 
lends  individual  charm  to  everything  he 


Foreword 

touches.  Where  he  will  end  does  not  con- 
cern us  now;  we  are  interested  only  in 
what  he  is  and  what  he  upholds  in  an  age 
dominantly  materialistic.  But  that  he  is 
related  to  America,  that  he  is  necessary  to 
America,  is  certain.  We  do  not  have  to 
know,  specifically,  much  of  Ruysbroeck, 
Novalis,  and  the  mystics  who  first  shaped 
the  mind  of  Maeterlinck.  We  claim  him 
by  right  of  Emerson  whom  he  declares  to 
have  been  his  greatest  influence.  Should 
he  visit  this  country,  his  impressions  would 
not  be  so  far  removed  from  his  knowledge 
of  life,  as  to  challenge  his  censure,  or  as 
to  take  him  out  of  his  element.  For  Amer- 
ica's love  of  speed  would  only  increase  his 
zest  for  the  forces  governing  that  speed. 
The  spirit  of  Wall  Street  is  the  spirit  of 
chance,  and  he  has  written  on  that;  the 
spirit  of  Pittsburgh  is  analogous  to  the 
spirit  of  the  automobile — in  fact,  of  all 
modern  machinery — and  he  has  written  on 
that.  He  would  be  as  interested  in  know- 
13 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

ing  where  we  tend  in  our  progress,  as  we 
are  in  seeing  his  own  development  from 
year  to  year. 

If  I  have  any  dominant  desire  prompt- 
ing this  study  of  Maeterlinck,  it  is  to  un- 
cover the  beautiful  simplicity  of  the  man, 
as  poet,  as  thinker,  and  as  a  man.  Curi- 
ously we  have  none  of  us  heeded  Lowell's 
warning  that  it  is  not  a  mystic's  province 
or  privilege  to  be  misty.  And  so  it  has  al- 
most become  a  convention  to  regard  Mae- 
terlinck as  difficult  of  understanding,  as 
obtuse  in  meaning  and  oblique  in  expres- 
sion. For  this  impression  Maeterlinck  is 
himself  largely  responsible;  he  upheld  a 
theory  with  which  he  is  now  usually  iden- 
tified, and  it  is  difficult  to  escape  the  stigma 
of  a  mannerism. 

It  is  a  delicate  matter  to  subject  a  living 
man  to  definitive  interpretation;  it  is  fu- 
tile to  attempt  to  place  him  in  perspective, 
since  his  position  is  advancing  and  shifting. 
In  such  a  case,  it  were  well  to  take  each 
14 


Foreword 

work  as  a  finished  product.  What  does 
this  in  itself  represent,  what  does  it  mean? 
Advancing  another  step,  we  may  build  up 
by  degrees  those  characteristics  marking 
the  artist,  and  those  attitudes  toward  the 
forces  of  life  and  toward  all  live  issues  de- 
fining the  thinker.  At  the  end,  we  may 
say:  in  this  year  of  his  latest  work,  Maurice 
Maeterlinck  looks  like  this,  stands  for  that, 
and  tends  toward  such  and  such  a  goal. 
After  a  while  a  man's  literary  features  be- 
come so  distinctive  that  nothing  less  than 
a  cataclysm  would  upset  the  general  out- 
lines. Maeterlinck  will  always  be  recog- 
nized as  the  same  mystic  mind;  only  char- 
acter changes  in  the  face  as  it  deepens  in 
the  heart  and  soul.  I  have  seen  pictures 
of  the  author  of  "Pelleas  et  Melisande," 
wherein  the  countenance  betokened  all  the 
melancholy  of  tragic  love;  I  have  seen 
pictures  of  the  author  of  "The  Double 
Garden,"  keen  with  the  robustness  of  out- 
of-doors — lover  of  dogs  and  master  of 
IS 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

fruitful  acres.    But  in  all  cases,  the  gazer 
into  hidden  depths  is  uppermost. 

In  this  spirit  I  approach  the  subject  of 
Maurice  Maeterlinck;  I  began  as  an  en- 
thusiast, and,  while  I  am  still  as  warm  in 
my  admiration,  my  judgment  has  sobered; 
for  he  challenges  dispute  even  as  he  invites 
acceptance.  I  see  him,  not  as  the  creator 
of  a  new  philosophy,  but  as  the  recreator 
of  an  old  one;  not  as  an  author  with  a 
philosophic  manner,  but  as  a  philosopher 
with  a  charming  literary  style.  His  es- 
says are  a  little  more  centralized  in  their 
underlying  thought  than  Emerson's,  and 
therefore  what  they  gain  in  singleness  of 
purpose,  they  lose  in  ornateness  of  form; 
he  is  not  over-rich  in  efflorescent  language. 
His  expression  is  simple;  it  is  his  philo- 
sophic fervor  which  is  sweeping.  He  pos- 
sesses the  power  of  mounting  to  great 
heights  from  a  point  of  worldly  enthusi- 
asm and  of  rural  enjoyment.  His  sym- 
pathies are  humble,  as  when  he  pleaded  a 
16 


Foreword 

case  for  some  poor  countryman  of  his,  as 
when  his  favorite  dog,  Pelleas,  died;  his 
imagination  is  unique,  as  when  he  brought 
his  knowledge  to  bear  upon  such  a  pugilis- 
tic member  as  the  fist. 

In  his  subjects,  Maeterlinck  is  an  au- 
thor of  surprises;  in  his  treatment,  an  au- 
thor of  never-tiring  sweetness  and  cour- 
tesy. Numberless  essays,  to  say  nothing 
of  "The  Blue  Bird,"  are  indicative  of  a 
sense  of  humor;  considerations  of  "Lear," 
"Macbeth,"  and  "Solness,"  translations  of 
the  mystics,  and  familiarity  with  scientific 
authorities  measure  his  extraneous  tastes. 
Every  piece  of  his  work  shows  him  subject 
to  change — and  as  a  man  in  transition  I 
choose  to  consider  him.  I  have  evidence 
for  every  step  in  this  growth — illustrations 
of  his  shifting  conception  of  the  symbol, 
of  his  impressionistic  sketches  in  poetry, 
called  "Serres  Chaudes,"  many  of  which 
were  embryonic  notes  for  future  dramas 
of  a  "marionette"  character. 
17 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

Like  Ibsen,  Maeterlinck  is  dependent 
upon  translation  for  the  average  reader. 
In  prose,  Alfred  Sutro  has  proven  more 
satisfactory  than  Alexander  Teixeira  de 
Mattos,  though  the  latter  seems  now  to  be 
the  English  exponent  of  Maeterlinck,  as 
Archer  has  been  of  Ibsen.  The  feeling 
work  accomplished  by  the  late  Richard 
Hovey,  when  he  translated  the  early  dra- 
mas, makes  the  reader  deplore  the  unfeel- 
ing rendition  of  "The  Blue  Bird"  and  the 
awkward  phrasing  of  "Mary  Magdalene." 
Not  a  strictly  popular,  but  an  authoritative 
edition  of  Maeterlinck,  sufficiently  marked 
by  the  style  of  the  original  to  be  popular, 
should  be  forthcoming  from  his  American 
publishers. 

I  say  this  since  in  English  we  are  not  al- 
ways given  what  goes  by  the  same  title  in 
French.  A  notable  instance  of  this  varia- 
tion is  seen  in  the  1904  Societe  du  Mercure 
de  France  edition  of  "Le  Tresor  des  Hum- 
bles," compared  with  the  1908  English 
18 


Foreword 

translation.  The  latter  omits  altogether 
three  essays  most  important  in  the  evolu- 
tion of  Maeterlinck,  namely,  "Ruysbroeck 
I/Admirable,"  "Emerson,"  and  "No- 
valis."  The  one  tenable  excuse  for  this 
may  be  that  these  are  introductions  to 
Maeterlinck's  own  renderings  of  his  mas- 
ters from  the  German  and  from  the  Flem- 
ish. In  the  case  of  Emerson,  he  prefaced 
a  translation  by  J.  Will.  The  English 
reader  will  find  therefore  that  there  is 
much  of  Maeterlinck  that  may  be  known 
only  in  the  French;  various  attempts 
have  been  made  to  catch  the  peculiar  mel- 
ody of  his  poems;  while  his  "Macbeth" 
and  adaptation  of  John  Ford's  drama  are 
illustrative  of  his  ability  as  faithful  trans- 
lator himself. 

Maurice  Maeterlinck  lends  himself 
readily  to  varied  editorial  treatment;  this 
is  a  palliative  to  those  who  wish  philoso- 
phy in  a  nut  shell,  who  are  addicted  to  the 
buying  of  an  author's  golden  nuggets,  or 
19 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

his  apposite  thoughts.  Let  a  man  be 
known  as  profound,  and  he  is  best  under- 
stood, or  rather  more  willingly  under- 
stood, in  amended  form.  Of  these  books, 
fortunately,  there  are  only  a  few. 

There  is  a  sufficiently  large  body  of  lit- 
erature upon  Maeterlinck  to  have  kept  an 
assistant  at  work  for  many  weeks  in  the 
Bibliotheque  Nationale.  But  I  do  not  care 
to  burden  this  book  with  too  much  precise 
research,  first  because  our  American  li- 
braries are  not  over-zealous  in  keeping 
pace  with  such  current  literature;  second 
because  much  of  the  material  is  repetitious, 
and  third  because  the  outlook  upon  the 
subject  is  usually  ephemeral  and  hysterical. 
The  German  commentaries  are  chiefly  con- 
cerned with  the  philosophical  aspects  of 
Maeterlinck's  work;  the  French  critics, 
while  interpretative,  are  also  personal,  as 
far  as  a  life  of  Maeterlinck  can  be  per- 
sonal. Two  of  the  most  suggestive  sur- 
veys have  been  Ad.  van  Bever's  review  in 
20 


Foreword 

"Les  Celebrites  d'Aujourd'hui,"  and 
Georges  Leneveu's  consideration  in  his 
"Ibsen  et  Maeterlinck."  In  English,  the 
student  has  little  to  consult.  Except  Ger- 
ard Harry's  biography,  which  is  peculiarly 
colorless,  and  which  is  after  all  a  French 
view,  the  American  reader  has  nothing 
but  short  essays  or  magazine  articles  to 
rely  on. 

For  this  reason,  I  trust  that  a  connected 
study  will  not  be  unwelcomed.  I  have  in- 
cluded a  bibliography  as  a  working  basis 
for  the  student,  should  he  care  to  carry  the 
subject  further. 

M.  J.  M. 
New  York,  August,  1911. 


21 


CHAPTER  I 

MAETERLINCK,  THE  MAN 

"The  frankest  and  most  loyal  man  has  the 
right  to  conceal  from  others  the  greatest 
part  of  what  he  feels" — Maeterlinck. 

A  SILENT  man  is  difficult  to  know; 
first,  because  events  are  not  significant 
in  his  life,  and  second,  because  one  feels 
a  reticence  in  piercing  the  veil  behind  which 
he  seems  to  dwell.  Maeterlinck's  person- 
ality should  be  painted  in  delicate  colours, 
with  a  certain  impressionistic  touch  that 
dwells  lightly  upon  form,  and  leaves  the 
canvas  pregnant  with  atmosphere.  If  he 
has  had  storm  and  stress,  struggle  has  only 
served  to  make  him  calm  and  strong;  if 
he  has  passed  through  exacting  experience, 
it  has  all  been  transmuted  into  a  quiet  wis- 
dom that  places  him  among  the  seers.  The 
portrait  is  such  as  one  must  love — modest 
23 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

and  unassuming,  boyish  and  sad  with  all 
the  dream  quality  of  youth. 

The  face  has  a  commanding  sweetness. 
Maurice  Maeterlinck  is  in  no  way  ascetic; 
he  is  thoroughly  human  and  healthful,  his 
life  being  a  kind  of  paradox.  For  he  lives 
in  the  open,  in  order  that  he  may  live  with- 
in himself;  he  is  a  man  in  contact  with 
earth,  in  order  that  he  may  the  better  dwell 
among  the  stars.  As  an  offset  to  every 
mystical  quality  in  his  nature,  one  is  able 
to  mention  some  tangible  activity  that 
keeps  him  alive  to  the  sense  of  growing 
things.  There  is  no  dead  weight  to  Mae- 
terlinck's learning;  there  is  no  preceptorial 
attitude  to  his  style.  He  is  a  man  of  the 
world  who  has  climbed  to  a  height. 

But  a  silent  and  an  apparently  quiet  man 
does  not  necessarily  betoken  one  whose 
spirit  is  persistently  at  rest.  Maeterlinck 
is  not  one  to  obtain  his  knowledge  of  life 
from  books,  even  though  he  is  deeply  read ; 
he  is  not  one  to  be  firmly  held  by  a  theory 
24 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

when  a  principle  is  at  stake;  he  is  not  one 
to  misuse  the  facts  of  life,  the  manifesta- 
tions of  Nature,  in  order  that  he  may  the 
easier  reach  those  forces  which  constitute 
life  itself.  Maeterlinck  is  thoroughly  hon- 
est with  himself,  and,  through  his  writings, 
with  those  who  read  him.  His  develop- 
ment is  evidence  of  his  plasticity  of  mind; 
he  adapts  his  medievalism  to  the  condi- 
tions of  modern  times;  he  attaches  these 
conditions  to  a  world-formula  that  tran- 
scends particular  belief  or  special  political 
and  social  faith.  He  is  a  seeker  after 
truth,  and  facts  are  the  mileposts  in  the 
long  way  that  he  has  elected  to  tread  alone. 
It  might  well  be  questioned  whether 
Maeterlinck  did  entirely  elect  his  course 
in  life;  not  that  I  would  claim  destiny  to 
have  a  hand  in  painting  the  portrait,  inas- 
much as  Maeterlinck's  path  has  changed 
direction  several  times  through  the  sheer 
force  of  his  will  to  believe  differently.  But 
the  march  of  events  does  leave  impress 
25 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

upon  character,  and  the  early  career  of 
Maeterlinck  is  as  significant  as  the  early 
career  of  Ibsen.  As  far  as  nationality  is 
concerned,  however,  the  two  men  were 
very  different;  for  though  Maeterlinck 
grew  up  amidst  Flemish  tradition,  and 
though  he  allied  himself  with  a  young 
school  of  poets  who  brought  revolution 
into  Belgian  literature,  he  soon  outgrew 
his  Flemish  and  even  his  Gallic  traits. 
Whereas  Ibsen,  a  voluntary  exile  from 
home  for  several  decades,  was  never  so 
completely  Norwegian  as  he  was  while  liv- 
ing in  Germany.  These  two  challenge 
comparison,  as  much  for  their  unlikeness 
as  for  their  similarity.  The  citizens  of 
Skien  were  not  cordial  to  young  Ibsen 
as  he  walked  the  streets,  mentally  lam- 
pooning the  smug  families  of  the  town. 
Gand  far  from  welcomed  the  imaginative 
melancholy  of  her  poets,  among  whom 
Maeterlinck  counted  himself.  In  neither 
26 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

case  was  the  atmosphere  such  as  to  draw 
the  best  from  a  man.* 

Yet  events  have  shown  that  the  consti- 
tutional difference  between  Ibsen  and  Mae- 
terlinck at  the  beginning  lay  in  the  fact  that 
whereas  the  moroseness  of  the  former  was 
a  very  part  of  him,  the  morbidity  of  the 
latter  was  only  a  passing  phase  of  art  and 
the  man  finding  themselves.  The  two,  in 
their  intellectual  and  spiritual  approach  to- 
ward life,  are  totally  dissimilar,  though 
fighting  for  the  same  broad  truth.  Ibsen 
was  a  social  philosopher  working  for  that 
freedom  of  the  individual  which  can  af- 
ford to  go  into  voluntary  bondage;  Mae- 
terlinck is  a  mystic  who  sees  through  life 
along  the  current  in  which  life  is  flowing. 
The  one  is  a  realist,  seeking  to  clear  so- 
ciety of  its  ills,  which  man  himself  has  caus- 
ed through  his  narrow,  dogmatical  esti- 
mate of  human  nature;  the  other  is  an 
idealist  who  sees  in  man  only  active  princi- 

*See  Leneveu,  "Ibsen  et  Maeterlinck." 

2? 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

pies  at  work — a  work  hindered  by  man's 
own  doubts  and  distractions.  Ibsen  is  much 
more  dynamic  than  Maeterlinck;  he  is 
much  more  expert  in  the  use  of  the  symbol 
in  connection  with  psychology.  But  where 
the  Belgian  serves  as  a  more  positive  force 
is  in  the  direct  appeal  he  makes  to  the  in- 
dividual, rather  than  in  an  indirect  one 
through  the  medium  of  a  social  problem. 
Both  literary  forces  have  been  necessary 
in  these  times,  the  one  making  nations 
question  political  and  social  institutions, 
the  other  putting  a  soul  into  democracy 
during  a  period  when  we  were  apt  to  for- 
get that  even  materialism  has  a  soul,  that 
even  machinery  has  a  spirit.  So  that  I 
regard  Maeterlinck  as  I  would  a  man  on 
the  flagpole  of  one  of  our  tallest  buildings 
— nearer  the  stars  than  the  city,  yet  within 
sound  of  both.  And  though  reticent  and 
shy,  his  philosophy  has  placed  him  in  con- 
spicuous position,  and  the  city  has  been 
forced  to  look  up  and  marvel.  In  life,  this 
28 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

is  quite  as  necessary  as  pinning  one's  faith 
to  fact.  Ibsen  reached  that  point  when 
he  realized  that  the  muckrake  was  not  as 
healthy  as  the  plow.  The  quality  of  "up- 
lift" in  Maeterlinck  is  a  reinforcement 
of  the  transcendentalism  of  Emerson. 

The  factors  which  have  placed  Mau- 
rice Maeterlinck  among  the  foremost  fig- 
ures of  the  present  are  easily  discernible 
in  every  aspect  of  his  life;  he  has  kept  his 
mind  open  and  he  has  kept  his  heart  fresh, 
and  Nature  has  done  about  as  much  to  de- 
velop him  as  mental  training.  Ibsen  was 
also  a  man  of  the  open,  well  on  into  life, 
planning  summer  walks  over  hill  and  dale 
and  mountain,  but  his  intellect  was  never 
free  from  brooding  over  the  miseries  of 
human  beings.  Maeterlinck,  with  a  flow- 
er in  his  hand,  was  ever  among  divine  laws 
— laws  as  common,  if  not  as  conscious,  to 
the  ordinary  garden  bloom  as  to  man.  I 
feel  assured  that  this  out-of-doors  attitude 
which  Maeterlinck  assumes,  even  in  his 
29 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

solitude,  is  what  has  helped  to  develop  his 
robustness.  He  is  not  effeminate,  he  is  not 
conciliatory,  he  does  not  hedge.  He  ex- 
periments, he  watches,  he  waits.  Then  he 
proclaims.  That  is  his  method  as  an  es- 
sayist. 

Therefore,  the  portrait  of  Maurice 
Maeterlinck  must  have  a  background  of 
flowers,  with  an  horizon  suggesting  infinity 
— not  a  hazy  skyline,  but  one  sharp  and 
clear,  with  faint  suggestions  of  a  modern 
city.  It  is  the  quiet,  the  spacious  silence,  the 
shadowy  woods,  the  flowers  amidst  clois- 
ters, that  reconcile  the  figure  of  Maeter- 
linck in  my  mind  to  St.  Wandrille ;  not  the 
fact  that  it  was  once  the  home  of  the  Bene- 
dictine Order.  And  there  is  something 
uniquely  in  accord  with  his  buoyancy  to 
note  an  unauthentic  report  that,  down 
one  of  the  long  halls  of  this  mediaeval  pile, 
the  stolid  figure  of  Maurice  Maeterlinck 
may  sometimes  be  seen  swinging  along  on 
roller  skates.  This  is  symbol  to  me  of  how 
30 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

far  ecclesiasticism  has  touched  the  man; 
he  realizes  its  presence,  but  he  does  not 
droop  amidst  it. 

Maurice  Maeterlinck  ( Polydore-Marie- 
Bernard)  was  born  at  Gand  on  August 
29,  1862,  member  of  a  Flemish  family 
well-known  in  the  district  of  Renaix  dur- 
ing the  fourteenth  century.  For  one  an- 
cestor, a  bailiff  of  distinction,  through  his 
generosity  in  measuring  out  grain  during 
a  famine,  won  the  family  name  which  the 
poet  now  bears,  Maeten  in  Flemish  mean- 
ing measure  or  spoon.  His  recent  biogra- 
pher, M.  Harry,  writes:* 

"The  most  part  of  the  Belgian  littera- 
teurs deem  him  very  unlike  themselves, 
who  by  tradition  and  choice  hold  aloof 
from  the  domain  of  speculation  and  ab- 
stract thought  which  is  his,  and  are  pre- 
eminently painters  of  material  and  plas- 

*Harry  considers  the  Parisian  pronunciation  of 
the  name — Meterlingue — incorrect,  and  gives  the 
proper  way  as  Matterli-nk,  the  final  letters  pro- 
nounced separately. 

31 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

tic  life,  lineal  descendants  of  Rubens,  Ten- 
iers,  Baron  Leys.  .  .  .  Yet  for  all 
this,  Maeterlinck  has  kept,  in  character  no 
less  than  in  physique,  the  impress  of  his 
Flemish  stock,  and  this  great-great-grand- 
son of  Van  Artevelde,  once  firmly  con- 
vinced of  the  justice  of  his  case,  has 
brought  to  the  defence  of  his  rights  the 
inflexible  perseverance,  the  'gentle  obsti- 
nacy,' which  characterizes  all  the  more  cul- 
tivated Flemings,  and  degenerates  into 
brutality  and  violence  in  those  of  the  in- 
ferior classes." 

His  early  childhood  was  passed  in  Oos- 
tacker,  near  a  canal  which  connects  Ghent 
with  a  small  town,  Terneuzen,  in  Dutch 
Flanders,  and  here  it  would  seem,  under 
the  tutelage  of  his  Roman  Catholic  parents, 
amidst  shrubs  and  flowers,  in  a  house  set 
well  back  from  the  road,  the  boy  first  be- 
gan to  cultivate  his  fondness  for  solitude. 
That  he  was  a  dreamy  lad  his  neighbors 
can  testify,  for  there  is  a  traditional  be- 
32 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

lief  that  Monsieur  Maurice — a  name  giv- 
en him  by  all,  from  the  veriest  peasant  to 
the  village  curate — possessed  the  gift  of 
second  sight. 

We  have  a  glimpse  of  the  place  in  the 
opening  directions  for  "Home":  "An  old 
garden,  planted  with  willows.  At  the  back, 
a  house  in  which  three  windows  on  the 
ground  floor  are  lighted."  But  this  impres- 
sion is  faint  in  comparison  with  the  actual 
colour  of  the  country  around  Oostacker, 
sweet  and  pleasant,  and  to  Maeterlinck, 
rivalling  Zealand,  "the  concave  mirror  of 
Holland."  He  has  written  thus,  in  charm- 
ing fashion,  of  a  land  "that  gladly  spreads 
out  before  us  as  so  many  pretty,  thought- 
ful toys,  her  illuminated  gables  and  wag- 
ons and  towers;  her  cupboards  and  clocks, 
that  gleam  at  the  end  of  the  passage;  her 
little  trees,  marshalled  in  line  along  quays 
and  canal-banks,  waiting,  one  might  al- 
most think,  for  some  quiet  beneficent  cere- 
mony; her  boats  and  her  barges,  her  flow- 
33 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

er-like  doors  and  windows,  immaculate 
dams,  and  elaborate,  many-coloured  draw- 
bridges; and  her  little  varnished  houses, 
bright  as  new  pottery."* 

Such  an  atmosphere  was  healthy,  even  if 
later  it  was  to  prove  dispiriting  to  the  art 
fervor  which  seized  Maeterlinck,  and  if  it 
did  nothing  more  for  the  boy  than  instil  a 
love  for  Nature  within  him,  his  debt  to 
Oostacker  is  great.  Here  it  was  that  wild 
flowers  and  garden  plants  became  a  pas- 
sion with  him ;  here  it  was  that  he  began  to 
know  the  old  man,  so  lovingly  described  in 
"The  Life  of  the  Bee,"f  who  awakened  in 
him  that  close  observation  which  marks  his 
social  study  of  the  hive;  here  it  was  also 
that  he  began  to  show  a  certain  literary 
taste,  and  to  make  friends  of  lasting  char- 
acter, even  though  he  was  to  depart  from 
them  in  his  practise  of  a  common  love  for 
poetry. 

*See  "The  Life  of  the  Bee,"  paragraph  4. 

fSee  "On  the  Threshold  of  the  Hive,"  paragraph  4. 

34 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

The  Jesuit  College  of  Sainte-Barbe  was 
at  Gand,  and  so  was  a  university  for  the 
study  of  law.  To  both  of  these  institu- 
tions Maeterlinck  was  soon  prepared  to 
go.  There  is  no  record  of  his  having  ex- 
celled in  any  of  his  studies,  though  he  was 
versed  in  Latin  and  Greek,  and  a  Jesuit 
influence  is  not  conducive  to  a  broad  inter- 
est in  science.  Maeterlinck's  future  passion 
was  never  to  be  of  a  systematic  order; 
rather  was  his  reading  to  be  much  more  in 
accord  with  his  momentary  interest.  He 
saw  far  beyond  the  authorities  he  consult- 
ed, and  his  thoroughness  only  enabled  him 
the  better  to  illumine  exact  knowledge  and 
to  raise  scientific  speculation  to  the  plane 
of  human  application. 

His  education  at  Sainte-B'arbe  brought 
him  into  intimate  relationship  with  Charles 
Van  Lerberghe  and  Gregoire  Le  Roy,  who 
were  to  exert  that  same  hold  over  him  that 
Due  and  Schulerud  had  on  Ibsen.  When 
the  three  were  not  forced  to  attend  strictly 
35 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

to  the  routine  of  the  college,  they  were 
together,  reading  the  poets  and  confiding 
their  literary  aspirations  to  one  another. 
In  fact  it  was  at  this  time  that  Van  Ler- 
berghe,  who  may  be  considered  the  god- 
father to  "Serres  Chaudes,"  first  expound- 
ed his  poetic  theories.  He  writes: 

"Maeterlinck  and  I  formed  the  habit,  in 
college,  of  addressing  our  literary  efforts 
to  each  other.  They  were  subjected  on 
either  side,  to  criticisms  both  lengthy  and 
severe ;  and  to  this  I  attribute  the  fact  that 
neither  of  us  dreamed  of  sending  them  to 
the  reviews.  Maeterlinck  sent  me  verses, 
especially  sonnets,  in  the  manner  of  He- 
redia,  but  Flemish  in  colour;  short  stories 
similar  to  those  of  De  Maupassant,  a  com- 
edy full  of  humour  and  ironical  observa- 
tion, and  other  ventures.  It  is  worth  no- 
ting, however,  that  he  never  attempted  a 
tragedy,  never  an  epic  poem,  never  any- 
thing florid  and  declamatory,  and  never 
anything  languorously  sentimental.  Nei- 
36 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

ther  the  rhetorical  nor  the  elegiac  had  any 
hold  on  him."* 

I  shall  have  more  to  say  of  Van  Ler- 
berghe  later,  in  relation  to  Maeterlinck's 
poetry,  for  in  his  own  personality,  in  his 
ascetic  inclination,  in  his  determined  for- 
malism, he  was  at  first  much  more  in  ac- 
cord with  the  Jesuit  atmosphere  than  his 
associate.  Van  Lerberghe's  precision  of 
style  did  not  aggravate  the  Fathers  as  did 
Maeterlinck's  avowed  romantic  tendencies. 
This  incipient  literary  academy  at  Sainte- 
Barbe  encouraged  in  the  general  reader's 
mind  a  conviction  that  Van  Lerberghe  and 
Maeterlinck  were  imitators,  the  one  of  the 
other,  but  on  examination  such  was  not 
the  case.  Two  impressionistic  minds  sub- 
ject to  the  same  literary  influences — the 
school  of  Rossetti  and  Burne-Jones — are 
bound  to  exhibit  the  same  Pre-Raphaelite 
tendencies.! 

*See  Van  Bever. 

tLc  Jeune  Belgique,  circa   1886-87,  contains  a  short 
article  by  Georges  Rodenbach  on  these  college  days. 

37 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

These  days,  therefore,  are  more  closely 
identified  with  the  art  inclinations  and  de- 
velopment of  Maeterlinck,  than  with  the 
scientific  and  philosophical  tastes  which 
later  coloured  his  entire  literary  outlook. 
We  know,  however,  that  in  glancing  back 
he  always  refers  to  the  Jesuit  Fathers  as 
exercising  narrow  tyranny  over  him ;  pleas- 
ant though  his  associates  were,  he  would 
not  again  voluntarily  subject  himself  to 
seven  years  intellectual  limitation  such  as 
began  around  1878,  when  he  entered  the 
college. 

In  1885,  he  began  the  study  of  law,  his 
family  being  intent  on  his  following  that 
profession;  as  yet  he  had  not  sufficiently 
determined  his  inclination  to  take  any  other 
stand  than  acquiescence,  so  that  soon  he 
was  a  member  of  the  bar  in  his  native 
town,  his  greatest  asset  being  a  clear  and 
practical  common  sense;  his  worst  draw- 
back being  a  weak  voice.  He  was  not  a 
38 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

pleader,  though  at  times  he  appeared  in 
the  courts  at  Ghent  as  advocate  for  some 
peasant ;  and  no  doubt  even  now  he  might 
be  persuaded  to  protect  a  needy  case,  were 
there  no  one  else  ready  to  render  the  ser- 
vice.* 

Thus,  Maeterlinck  passed  through  two 
events  in  his  life  with  spirit  free  and  search- 
ing. He  had  seen  a  large  proportion  of 
his  associates  at  Sainte-Barbe  prepare  for 
the  priesthood;  he  had  pleased  the  desires 
of  his  father.  The  time  was  now  come  to 
please  himself.  Paris  was  beckoning  to 
him,  and  his  youth  had  to  answer  the  call ; 
in  fact,  his  great  love  of  seclusion  came 
after  he  had  tasted  of  the  noise  and  ten- 
sion of  the  Latin  Quarter. 

Therefore,    in    1886,    accompanied   by 

*He  was  convinced  that  "to  study  law,  it  is  neces- 
sary to  walk  among  ruins,  in  a  graveyard  which  shall 
also  be  a  species  of  dockyard.  I  do  not  feel  myself 
a  ship.  Life  and  thought  have  for  me  other  mean- 
ing." See  interview  with  M.  Joseph  Galtier :  "Les 
fiducateurs  de  ma  Pensee,"  in  Les  Annales,  No.  I445> 
p.  232. 

39 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

Gregoire  Le  Roy,  he  occupied  rooms  at 
22  Rue  de  Seine,  and  gave  himself  over  to 
the  Symbolists  whose  official  organ  was 
"La  Pleiade."  A  feverish  thrill  took  hold 
of  him,  and  as  a  reaction  against  Jesuit 
training,  as  a  reward  for  months  of  legal 
study,  he  saturated  himself  in  the  artistic 
atmosphere. 

"I  saw  Villiers  de  I'lsle-Adam  very  of- 
ten," he  says,  "at  the  Brasserie  Posset,  in 
the  Faubourg  Montmartre.  Saint-Pol- 
Roux,  Mikhael,  Quillard,  and  others  carne 
there  regularly.  Mendes  passed  there  oc- 
casionally."* 

There  was  much  inspiration  to  be  gain- 
ed in  these  surroundings,  but  he  had  to 
break  himself  of  that  emotional  indefinite- 
ness,  even  as  later  he  had  to  check  his  con- 
tinuous habit  of  smoking,  gained  no  doubt 
during  those  long  hours  of  conversation 
with  Edmond  Picard, — dreams  through 

*See  Jules   Huret:   "Enquete   sur   1'evolution   lit- 
teraire." 

40 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

blue  veils  of  tobacco  smoke.  Among  such 
a  coterie,  Villiers*  aired  his  stories,  ex- 
ercising marked  influence  upon  Maeter- 
linck. Mallarme's  poems  were  quoted, 
and  no  doubt  these  men,  many  of  them 
struggling  against  fortune  only  to  meet 
defeat,  inspired  Maeterlinck  to  publish 
some  of  the  verses  he  had  written.  This 
atmosphere  both  encouraged  him  and  gave 
him  a  revulsion  of  feeling.  It  started  him 
upon  a  career  which  the  practical  bour- 
geoisie of  Ghent,  like  the  Grimstad  folk 
in  Ibsen's  case,  considered  wasteful  and 
ineffective ;  it  likewise  made  him  more  will- 
ing to  return  to  the  quiet  of  Gand  in  win- 
ter, and  to  the  embowered  home  at  Oos- 
tacker  in  summer,  where  he  now  became 
concerned  in  the  care  of  bees. 

Around  this  time,  Maeterlinck  was  serv- 
ing in  the  Civic  Guard  of  Ghent,  fulfilling 
the  regulations  of  the  law  in  seemingly  irk- 

*For  Villiers  de  1'Isle-Adam,  see  Huneker's  "Icon- 
oclasts." Verlaine  humorously  called  this  group 
"Cymbalists." 

41 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

some  manner,  since  he  so  often  found  his 
musket  rusty  when  it  came  to  inspection 
day.  He  cannot  be  said  to  have  been  ac- 
tively engaged  in  literary  labour  during 
this  period,  for  he  was  not  a  rapid  pro- 
ducer, and  allowed  only  a  few  poems  to 
slip  into  print.  Already  the  spell  of  soli- 
tude was  upon  him,  and  in  his  work, 
whether  in  or  out  of  doors,  he  lived  up  to 
his  abhorrence  of  "routine  as  nature  ab- 
hors a  vacuum." 

On  March  i,  1886,  there  had  been 
founded  "La  Pleiade,"  to  which  Maeter- 
linck contributed  a  prose  piece,  "Le  Mass- 
acre des  Innocents";*  he  had  likewise  been 
included  in  a  collection  of  verse  represen- 
tative of  eighteen  Belgian  poets,  "Le 
Parnasse  de  la  Jeune  Belgique"  (1887), 
Georges  Rodenbach  being  instrumental  in 

*Contained  as  a  supplement  to  Harry's  "Life" ;  also 
included  in  "The  Massacre  of  the  Innocents  and 
Other  Tales  by  Belgian  Writers."  Tr.  by  Edith 
Wingate  Kinder;  Stone  and  Kimball  (Duffield),  1894. 
"Le  Parnasse  de  la  Jeune  Belgique"  was  issued  by 
Lacomblez. 

42 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

making  him  known  to  the  publisher. 
"Serres  Chaudes,"  hothouse  blooms 
scarcely  tangible,  yet  exuding  a  perfume  of 
rare  penetration,  was  being  slowly  evolved 
all  this  while,  but  though  in  these  half- 
formed  poems  one  is  able  to  detect  some- 
thing of  the  calibre  of  mind  yet  to  come, 
it  was  not  until  "La  Princesse  Maleine" 
was  issued — the  year  1889  bringing  to 
light  both  the  verses  and  the  play — that 
Maeterlinck,  through  the  ill-advised  praise 
of  Octave  Mirbeau,  found  himself  famous. 
It  may  have  encouraged  him;  it  certainly 
gave  him  satisfaction  to  realize  that  he 
had  been  received  by  others,  where  his 
own  country  had  regarded  him  askance. 
But  this  did  not  disturb  Maeterlinck;  he 
pursued  the  natural  bent  of  his  mind, 
formulating  his  own  theories,  illustrating 
his  own  technique,  reading  according  to 
his  own  tastes,  and  modifying  his  view  as 
his  philosophy  brought  clearer  to  his  un- 
derstanding the  close  relation  in  art  be- 
43 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

.tween  the  unseen  and  its  outward  mani- 
festations. 

What  the  over-enthusiasm  of  Mirbeau 
did  serve  to  do  was  to  make  Maeterlinck 
careful  in  his  social  engagements.  He  re- 
fused to  be  feted  or  idolized,  even  though 
everywhere  he  went,  outside  the  privacy  of 
his  home,  he  was  besieged  by  the  curious. 
This  Belgian  Shakespeare  had  just  cause 
to  despise  the  Bard  of  Avon.  Under  date 
of  October  4,  1890,  he  wrote  to  a  friend:* 

"I  beseech  you  in  all  sincerity — I  re- 
peat, in  all  sincerity — if  you  can  stop  the 
interviews  you  speak  of,  stop  them.  I  am 
getting  horribly  tired  of  all  this.  Yes- 
terday, as  I  was  at  dinner,  two  reporters 

of  the  plopped  into  my  soup.     I 

am  off  to  London;  for  I  am  sick  and  ill 
of  these  new  experiences.  So,  if  you  can- 
not prevent  the  interviews,  the  fellows  will 
have  to  interview  my  servant-maid." 

He  was  absolutely  sincere  in  this  desire 

*Quoted  in  Harry. 

44 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

for  quiet  and  simplicity.  When  asked  to 
dine,  it  was  his  custom  to  accept  only  on 
the  promise  that  he  should  not  be  sub- 
ject to  ceremony.  "I  am  a  peasant,"  he 
would  declare.  But  this  was  not  the  real 
reason;  his  face,  his  bearing,  were  indica- 
tive of  the  true  cause.  Already  the  out- 
lines of  Maurice  Maeterlinck  had  as- 
sumed definite  proportions;  he  was  a  big 
boy  with  broad  shoulders  and  with  a  face 
showing  all  the  calm  and  sweetness  of  the 
dreamer,  whose  eyes,  blue  to  the  depths, 
measured  the  mystery  and  tragedy  of  a 
soul  beneath.  Already  Maeterlinck's  head 
was  turned  toward  the  far  horizon  of  life; 
already  he  was  measuring  infinity  in  finite 
terms.  There  was  nothing  flaccid  in  such 
a  countenance;  it  was  full  of  the  colour 
of  Flanders.  Van  Bever  met  him  in  1893, 
and  even  then  he  gave  one  the  impression 
of  being  the  only  writer  who,  in  the  midst 
of  class  wrangling  and  scientific  question- 
45 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

ing,  had  been  able  to  retain  his  high  pas- 
sion and  his  big  ideas. 

About  this  time,  so  Maeterlinck  confess- 
ed to  M.  Joseph  Galtier,  he  became  en- 
amoured of  Elizabethan  dramatic  poetry, 
other  than  that  of  Shakespeare.*  He  had 
mastered  English  sufficiently  to  read 
Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  Webster,  and 
Heywood  in  the  original,  and  there  was 
something  about  the  efflorescence  of  their 
style  which  appealed  strongly  to  his  ro- 
mantic tastes — a  romanticism  far  different 
from  that  of  Byron.  "Since  then,"  he 
writes,  "I  have  assiduously  familiarized 
myself  with  the  English  poets,  notably 
Shelley  and  Robert  Browning.  I  owe 
much,  also,  to  Germany;  for  I  have  stud- 
ied all  the  German  classics,  and  I  have 
read  the  whole  of  Schopenhauer,  prefer- 
ring in  especial  his  'Les  Parerga.'  ' 

Even  in  solitude,  nevertheless,   a  man 
must  feel  himself  in  the  midst  of  stimula- 
*See  Les  Annals,  No.  1445.  P-  233- 
46 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

tion.  Belgium  seemed  unable  to  furnish 
the  necessary  impetus.  Maeterlinck  left 
his  native  land  just  at  the  crucial  period 
of  his  life,  and  1896  is  a  significant  turn- 
ing point  in  his  development.  By  that 
time,  he  had  very  thoroughly  formulated 
his  theory  of  the  static  drama,  and  had 
illustrated  the  same  by  a  series  of  mario- 
nette plays  whose  one  distinctive  quality 
was  their  suggestive  psychology  of  unseen 
emotion.  By  that  time  also  he  had  become 
so  thoroughly  a  disciple  of  Emerson, 
Ruysbroeck,  and  Novalis  that  he  was  ripe 
to  put  into  prose  what  could  not  be  con- 
tained in  the  fragile  shape  of  his  theatre. 
So,  during  1896,  he  definitely  deserted 
Flanders  for  Paris,  where,  ten  years  be- 
fore, he  had  been  weaned  from  the  law. 
At  the  play  one  evening,  he  was  intro- 
duced to  a  lady,  Norman  by  birth,  who 
was  cordial  in  her  admiration  for  his 
work.  People  who  knew  Maeterlinck  at 
that  time  say  that  he  was  awkward  as  well 
47 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

as  timid,  and  only  with  difficulty  was  he 
able  to  answer  the  effusiveness  of  the  well- 
known  actress  who  stood  before  him.  This 
was  the  meeting  between  Georgette  Le- 
blanc  and  her  future  husband. 

He  now  came  under  her  spell  complete- 
ly as  far  as  his  dramatic  theory  was  con- 
cerned; his  attitude  changed  gradually,  be- 
ginning with  "Aglavaine  et  Selysette"  and 
terminating  in  the  full-blooded  figure  of 
"Monna  Vanna."  The  understanding  be- 
tween these  two  must  have  been  as  rapid 
as  it  was  complete,  for  when  "The  Treas- 
ure of  the  Humble"  appeared  during  this 
year,  1896,  it  bore  an  indication  of  intel- 
lectual and  spiritual  accord,  in  the  dedica- 
tion, which  ran  thus: 

"I  dedicate  to  you  this  book  which  is, 
in  effect,  your  work.  There  is  a  collab- 
oration more  lofty  and  more  real  than 
that  of  the  pen;  it  is  that  of  thought  and 
example.  I  have  not  been  obliged  to 
imagine  laboriously  the  resolutions  and 
48 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

the  actions  of  a  wise  ideal,  or  to  extract 
from  my  heart  the  moral  of  a  beautiful 
reverie  necessarily  a  trifle  vague.  It  has 
sufficed  to  listen  to  your  words.  It  has 
sufficed  that  my  eyes  have  followed  you 
attentively  in  life;  they  followed  thus  the 
movements,  the  gestures,  the  habits  of 
Wisdom  herself." 

When  one  has  read  thus  far  in  the  life 
of  Maurice  Maeterlinck,  he  has  reached 
the  height  of  his  eventful  life.  He  is  a  man 
of  warmth,  and  when  he  refused  to  come 
to  New  York  during  the  winter  of  1910, 
it  was  quite  as  much  to  avoid  the  snow,  as 
to  escape  the  wear  and  tear  of  public 
adulation.  For  he  has  two  homes,  and 
his  flight  to  either  is  like  the  migration  of 
birds  seeking  the  warm  winds  and  the 
flowers.  His  homes  have  been  many  since 
leaving  Oostacker:  the  Rue  Raynouard, 
the  Rue  Pergolese,  in  a  house  at  Passy 
which  was  once  occupied,  according  to 
49 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

Harry,  by  Balzac.  Once  also  he  resided 
in  a  quaint  country  house  in  the  hamlet  of 
Gruchet-St.-Simon,  near  Dieppe — a  Nor- 
mandy situation  of  some  beauty.  He  is 
like  the  bee,  flitting  here  and  there,  dart- 
ing to  England,  travelling  through  Hol- 
land, speeding  through  France  in  his  car. 

But  now,  with  some  regularity  he  may 
be  counted  upon  to  pass  his  winters  in  the 
South  of  France  at  Les  Quatres  Chemins, 
near  Grasse,  amidst  the  luxuriance  of 
olive  trees  and  grape-vines  and  roses,  be- 
neath pergolas  a  1'Italienne,  and  his  sum- 
mers at  1'Abbaye  St.  Wandrille,  amidst 
thirty-five  acres  of  dense  woods.  If  he 
has  to  run  to  Paris,  he  hides  himself  in 
the  suburbs,  at  Neuilly,  from  whence  he 
sallies  forth  to  arrange  with  his  publishers 
or  his  managers. 

This  is  the  outward  life  of  Maurice 
Maeterlinck;  what  the  inward  develop- 
ment is  had  best  be  traced  in  his  works. 
What  we  know  of  his  outward  bearing 
50 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

carries  warmth  and  appeal  to  us.  He  is 
a  man  who  talks  without  haste,  who  writes 
when  he  wills  and  what  he  wants.  Within 
past  years,  he  has  shaved  his  mustache  and 
his  hair  has  become  sprinkled  with  gray; 
this  gives  him  the  appearance  of  an  over- 
grown boy,  fond  of  reflection,  yet  whose 
blood  is  healthy  with  the  regular  hours 
of  sleeping  and  rising,  and  with  the  exer- 
cise of  out-of-doors. 

He  contemplates  in  action,  so  to  speak, 
speeding  along  the  lower  Seine  in  his  au- 
tomobile, with  observation  keyed.  Some- 
times he  has  been  known  to  skate  as  far 
as  Bruges;  at  other  times  he  has  been 
found  canoeing;  still  again  on  a  bicycle, 
threading  the  highways  and  byways  of 
the  countryside.  In  such  pleasant  guise, 
he  passes  the  days  that  increase  into  years. 

"When  I  have  told  you,"  Georgette  Le- 
blanc  writes,  "that  he  spends  the  summer 
in  Normandy  and  the  winter  in  the  South; 
that  he  rises  early,  visits  his  flowers  and 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

fruits,  his  bees,  his  river,  his  big  trees;  sets 
to  work,  then  returns  to  his  garden;  that 
after  his  meals  he  goes  in  for  the  sports 
he  is  fond  of — the  canoe,  the  automobile, 
cycling  or  walking;  that  every  evening  the 
light  of  the  lamp  illumines  his  reading, 
and  that  he  goes  to  bed  in  good  time,  you 
will  not  know  much,  for  these  little  cus- 
toms are  but  the  vessels,  larger  or  smaller, 
which  hold  the  substance  of  life." 

He  is  a  man  of  simple  habits,  and  St. 
Wandrille,  huge  in  its  mediaeval  propor- 
tions, is  not  crowded  with  servants  and  at- 
tendants. He  never  departs  from  his 
quiet  communion  with  thought,  and  while 
fishing  for  trout  in  the  stream  flowing  near 
his  house,  he  finds  adequate  leisure  for  the 
speculation  he  most  desires.  In  fact,  his 
tastes  surprise  those  expecting  to  find  him 
wholly  profound;  when  one  may  imagine 
him  reading  a  book  on  philosophy,  he  is 
most  likely  to  be  deep  in  the  latest  treatise 
on  bait.  In  his  study,  he  writes  his  manu- 
52 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

scripts  in  clear,  decided  hand,  passing  them 
over  to  his  secretary  for  typewriting.  He 
is  unaffected,  with  no  marks  of  greatness 
about  his  person,  save  the  fire  that  shines 
in  his  eyes.  Indeed,  M.  Harry  declares 
that  he  may  be  easily  taken  for  a  chauffeur 
in  his  short  jacket  and  cap,  or  for  a  gar- 
dener, clad  in  an  old  apron  and  a  dilapi- 
dated felt  hat  on  his  h^ad,  working  among 
the  plants. 

One  has  only  to  read  his  essay  on  the 
dog  to  note  the  gentleness  characterizing 
his  attitude  toward  all  life  below  the  rela- 
tive scale  of  man's  measure;  one  has  only 
to  glance  through  his  translations  of  Ruys- 
broeck  and  to  note  his  reading  of  Plotinus 
and  other  philosophers,  to  comprehend  his 
patience  as  a  student.  In  Maeterlinck,  we 
find  the  same  surprising  lack  of  a  music 
love  and  understanding  that  characterized 
Tennyson,  the  most  lyrical  of  English 
poets.  When  "Pelleas  et  Melisande," 
"Ardiane  et  Barbe-Bleue,"  and  "Monna 
S3 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

Vanna"  were  scored  for  the  opera,  it  was 
Madame  Maeterlinck  who  passed  judg- 
ment, and  upon  whom  all  the  technical  de- 
tails fell. 

Undoubtedly,  in  the  presence  of  Mau- 
rice Maeterlinck,  there  is  a  feeling  of 
special  dedication,  which  Wordsworth's 
line — "His  soul  was  like  a  star  and  dwelt 
apart" — very  fitly  describes.  But  he  is 
most  active  when  most  quiet.  Believing 
as  he  does  in  the  soul's  life,  he  gives  that 
life  ample  opportunity  to  unfold  in  silence. 
And  once  more  we  accord  with  Words- 
worth in  the  belief  that  there  are  thoughts 
which  do  often  lie  too  deep  for  tears. 

Whatever  Maeterlinck  does,  contains 
the  impress  of  the  student;  amidst 
pictures  and  books,  seated  at  a  table  near 
the  window  which  brings  to  him  the  sound 
of  Nature  outside,  this  healthy  mystic 
writes  his  essays  which  first  are  destined 
to  appear  in  magazines.  Even  now  he 
is  busy  with  a  new  play  to  follow  his 
54 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

"Mary  Magdalene."  His  catholicity  of 
taste  is  very  evident  in  his  library.  Some- 
one has  written: 

"Maeterlinck  reflects  in  his  works  the 
international  character  of  his  country.  .  . 
He  has  all  the  glow  and  fervor  of  the 
Roman;  the  keen  human  insight  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon;  and  that  peculiar  religious 
mysticism  which  is  a  Germanic  quality  ex- 
emplified by  Swedenborg,  Lavater,  Jacob 
Boehme,  and  by  his  own  noble  country- 
man, Johann  Ruysbroeck." 

But  among  all  of  Maeterlinck's  books, 
there  is  one  of  especial  significance  to  us — 
in  fine  print  and  on  bad  paper — a  book 
scored  and  underscored  with  pencil  lines. 
It  is  a  dilapidated  volume  of  Emerson's 
"Essays."  And  when  asked  pointedly 
about  influences,  the  author  of  "Wisdom 
and  Destiny"  does  not  hesitate  to  pay 
tribute  to  the  Sage  of  Concord. 


55 


CHAPTER  II 

MAETERLINCK,  THE  POET 

"Many  thoughts  are  too  delicate  to  be 
thought,  many  more  to  be  spoken." — 
Novalis. 

FOR  the  proper  study  of  Maeterlinck, 
the  poet,  it  is  necessary  to  have  in 
mind  four  things:  the  morbid  atmosphere 
of  Poe,  nowhere  better  realized  than  in 
"The  Fall  of  the  House  of  Usher";  the 
poetry  of  Arthur  Rimbaud,  author  of  "Les 
Illuminations" ;  the  artistic  development  of 
Charles  Van  Lerberghe,  who  personally 
had  more  influence  on  Maeterlinck  than 
ever  his  "Les  Flaireurs" ;  and  finally, 
Maeterlinck's  own  conception  of  the  prov- 
ince of  the  poet, — his  theory  and  his  atti- 
tude.* In  addition,  it  is  necessary  to  con- 

*Tr.  by  Aline  Gorren.  George  Leneveu,  in  "Ibsen 
et  Maeterlinck,"  refers  also  to  the  poetry  of  Georges 
Rodenbach. 

57 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

sider  those  early  influences  on  an  impres- 
sionistic young  man  who,  having  escaped 
the  exacting  conditions  of  a  Jesuit  college^ 
and  having  an  early  taste  for  Burne-Jones, 
Odilon  Redon,  and  Georges  Minne,  sud- 
denly found  himself  listening  to  Stephane 
Mallarme  and  Villiers  de  I'lsle-Adam.* 

The  school  of  "Cymbalists"  consisted 
of  Maeterlinck's  early  associates.  Gregoire 
LeRoy,  author  of  "Mon  Cceur  Pleure 
d'Autrefois,"  found  himself  forced  to  turn 
electrical  engineer;  and  later,  in  his  desire 
to  be  made  librarian  of  the  College  Saint- 
Michel,  he  was  chagrined  to  realize  that 
the  fact  of  his  being  a  poet  stood  in  his 
way.  Mikhael,  Jean  Aj  albert,  Pierre 
Quillard,  and  Edmond  Picard  were  fol- 
lowers of  this  impressionism,  which  de- 
pended largely  upon  the  choice  of  a  wide 
disparity  of  detail  for  psychological  effect. 
In  scientific  terms  this  would  mean  disso- 
ciation of  ideas.  These  were  the  men  who 
*See  Appendix  B. 

58 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

had  so  much  to  do  with  the 'whilom  fate 
of  Max  Waller's  Jeune  Belglque,  for 
which  Maeterlinck  wrote  a  small  poem, 
signed  "Mater."  Before  this,  in  1886,  as 
we  have  noted,  he  published  in  LeRoy's 
"Pleiade"  "The  Massacre  of  the  Inno- 
cents," under  the  Flemish  spelling  of  his 
Christian  name,  "Mooris."  This  maga- 
zine survived  only  six  numbers,*  and  boast- 
ed of  only  eighteen  subscribers;  hence 
Maeterlinck's  reputation  was  not  far-her- 
alded. 

But  the  story  itself  is  a  sheer  bit  of  real- 
ism, saturated  with  romantic  morbidness — 
a  story  full  of  Flemish  colour,  resembling 
a  canvas  splotched  with  yellow,  blue,  and 
red.  The  Biblical  scene  comes  to  life 
again  in  a  village  reminiscent  with  touches 
of  Oostacker,  and  heightened  by  a  Spanish 

*Maeterlinck's  piece  appeared  in  the  third  number; 
May,  1886.  It  is  found  in  the  English  edition  of 
Harry's  "Maeterlinck,"  and  also  in  Edith  Wingate 
Rinder's  "Tales  by  Belgian  Writers"  [Stone  and 
Kimball,  1894]. 

59 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

flavour  of  cruelty.  It  is  pointless,  but  mi- 
nute, especially  minute,  like  Meissonier  or 
Detaille  in  the  variety  of  its  object  paint- 
ing. What  the  sketch  typifies  is  a  certain 
rapid  observation  which  nervously  creates, 
with  the  slightest  effort  and  in  the  fewest 
words,  a  vivid  impression.  Amidst  faint 
hints  of  historical  faithfulness,  there  is  an 
abstractness  about  the  scene,  and  despite 
the  ruthless  carnage  there  is  a  delicacy  of 
treatment  that  foreshadows  the  incongru- 
ous pictures  of  "Serres  Chaudes."  In  "The 
Massacre  of  the  Innocents,"  Maeterlinck 
remembered  scenes  from  his  own  sur- 
roundings, and  as  a  literal  "lay-out," 
heightened  by  a  natural  inclination  to  sen- 
timentalize, this  small  story  is  distinctive. 
There  is  a  mill  in  the  light  of  flames 
started  by  marauding  Spaniards;  there  is 
a  sweep  of  snow  with  the  starlit  blue  over- 
head, and  here  and  there  flocks  of  beasts, 
with  a  huddled  group  of  wild  folk  in  blue 
breeches  and  red  cloaks.  In  the  midst  of 
60 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

merry-making,  there  are  thrust  the  swing- 
ing bodies  of  the  dead,  and  near  ruins  with 
such  picturesque  names  as  "Blue  Lion" 
and  "Golden  Sun,"  happen  gruesome 
events.  Maeterlinck  sets  forth  his  scene 
in  simple  manner,  as  though  the  details 
were  on  solid  planes  ready  to  be  moved, 
a  narrative  Noah's  ark  landscape.  The 
quality  of  horror  is  uppermost,  and  the 
most  vivid  figures  are  those  of  the  hunch- 
back and  the  idiot. 

In  fact,  the  distinguishing  note  in  this 
sketch  is  not  of  warmth  or  of  humanity, 
but  of  surface  decoration.  The  movement 
is  rather  one  of  gaily  decked  puppets  than 
of  characters  in  the  flesh  and  blood — dis- 
agreeable bits  of  color  splashed  on  china. 
There  is  a  dash  of  kermesse  joy  with  a 
wail  of  death;  there  are  little  boys  and 
girls  decked  in  red  and  pink  and  white, 
fleeing  before  drawn  swords.  The  sky  line 
is  far  away,  and  the  wonder  is  that  so 
sharply,  so  quickly,  Maeterlinck  can  sug- 
61 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

gest  the  extent  of  the  onslaught,  and  the 
cold,  determined  progress  of  the  massacre. 
Already  we  find  Maeterlinck's  love  of  the 
mystic  seven,  of  the  white  beard,  of  the 
tower  significantly  looming  above  the  car- 
nage, all  entering  his  decorative  concep- 
tions. The  accessories  of  this  story  are 
what  would  be  necessary  to  foster  such 
nuances  as  permeate  "Serres  Chaudes."  In 
fact,  the  descriptions  are  more  like  exer- 
cises in  fitting  detail  effectively,  in  order  to 
create  feeling.  In  a  way,  I  like  to  regard 
"The  Massacre  of  the  Innocents"  as  I  re- 
garded Ibsen's  little  story,  "The  Wed- 
ding." It  illustrates  the  influence  of  sur- 
roundings upon  imagination;  it  determines 
the  bent  of  the  artist's  mind  without  meas- 
uring the  calibre  of  his  thought* 

There  was  another  "Pleiade"  published 

*Verhaeren,  Emile:  La  Plume,  1901,  404;  1904,  33, 
99.  Ajalbert,  J. :  La  Plume,  1901,  356.  De  1'Isle- 
Adam:  Symons :  "Symbolist  Movement."  Kraemer, 
Alexis  von:  Thesis  Study;  1900.  Mallarme,  S,: 
Symons:  "Symbolist  Movement" 

62 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

in  Brussels,  for  which,  on  February  20, 
1890,  Maeterlinck  wrote  a  critique  on 
Iwan  Gilkin's*  "Damnation  de  I1  Artiste" 
— a  book  from  which  he  gleaned  "fair 
white  at  the  gates  of  hell,"  and  in  which 
he  was  carried  to  the  "depths  of  a  conscious- 
ness abnormally  darkened."  These  poets 
seemed  to  harrow  themselves  unnecessari- 
ly, and  for  the  sake  of  seeing  whether  they 
might  again  reach  light  through  blackness. 
They  were  fond  of  speaking  of  a  flower 
as  wilfully  blue;  of  giving  the  quality  of 
maliciousness  to  the  elements  of  the  air; 
of  attributing  to  words  the  richness  of  al- 
most unutterable  thought.  Maeterlinck 
was  responsive  to  first  impressions;  he  be- 
lieved that  the  eye  should  accustom  itself 
to  the  "nocturnal  aspects  of  words";  he 
echoed  Hello, f  who  averred  that  "where 

*Gilkin's  poem  was  reprinted,  1897,  by  Fischbacher, 
Paris.  In  its  original  issue,  it  contained  a  frontis- 
piece by  Odilon  Redon. 

tFor  a  short  account  of  Hello,  see  Huneker's 
"Egoists."  A  life  was  written  by  Lasserre.  Hello 
wrote  many  short  stories,  and  translated  Ruysbroeck. 

63 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

no  spice  of  horror  is,  there  neither  love 
nor  light  is  to  be  found." 

And  thus  early  he  recognized  the  mys- 
tery surrounding  a  poet's  meaning.  What 
the  artist  has  not  consciously  intended  is 
the  real  true  essence  of  his  work.  In  this 
frame  of  mind,  Maeterlinck  has  written: 
"The  poet  premeditates  this,  premeditates 
that,  but  woe  to  him  if  he  does  not  attain 
something  else  besides  !  He  enters  with  his 
lamp  the  treasure-house  of  darkness  and 
the  ineffable,  but  woe  to  him,  if  he  knows 
to  a  jot  and  tittle  with  what  booty  he  re- 
turns, and  if  the  best  part  of  his  glory  is 
not  the  jewel  he  has  won  by  mistake."  It 
is  what  we  come  upon  unawares  that  is 
most  likely  to  contain  the  secret. 

Maeterlinck's  tendency,  therefore,  is  to 
seek  for  the  unseen,  to  fathom  the  true 
essence  of  the  symbol;  so  to  make  use  of 
the  occult  force  within  things  as  to  bring 
others  to  realize  the  presence  of  this  inner 
quality.  It  is  interesting  to  note  how  nat- 
64 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

urally  his  theory  of  static  drama  followed 
from  his  attitude  toward  the  symbol,  for 
if  that  which  is  truest  and  purest  appears 
outside  of  his  control,  and  independent  of 
his  knowledge  or  of  his  design,  then,  in 
using  a  symbol,  the  poet  must  be  passive 
in  it.  The  symbol  is  the  vital  core  of  the 
poem,  and  without  it  no  work  of  art  may 
exist. 

It  is  well,  at  the  outset,  to  determine 
something  of  Maeterlinck's  concept  of  the 
symbol.  He  recognized  one  of  deliberate 
purpose — an  allegorical  form,  whereby 
abstractions  are  made  human.  Many  of 
his  marionette  dramas  are  of  such  a  spe- 
cies. But  there  is  a  more  potent  symbol 
in  the  unconscious  force  which  acts  in  spite 
of  will,  in  spite  of  thought.  In  the  first, 
we  see  that  a  form  of  art — the  allegory — 
is  born;  in  the  latter,  the  work  of  art  has 
to  be,  before  the  symbol  is  abstracted. 
Hence  Maeterlinck's  assertion  that  no 
work  of  art  could  be  born  alive  from  the 
65 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

symbol,  "but  the  symbol  is  always  born  of 
the  work — if  it  be  alive." 

Therefore,  the  symbol  has  an  indepen- 
dent creative  power  apart  from  the  imagi- 
native power  of  the  poet.  In  outward 
construction  for  the  stage,  Francisque 
Sarcey  claimed  that,  should  the  dramatist 
be  faithful  to  the  impetus  of  his  first  con- 
ception, there  are  certain  necessary  scenes 
—what  he  called  scenes  a  falre — which 
will  have  to  be  written  and  which  are  be- 
yond the  caprice  of  the  dramatist.  So  with 
the  active  symbol  as  found  in  ./Eschylus  and 
Shakespeare. 

"If  I  succeed  in  creating  human  beings," 
Maeterlinck  claims,  "  and  if  I  allow  them 
to  act  in  my  soul  as  freely  and  as  naturally 
as  they  would  act  in  the  universe,  it  may 
be  that  their  actions  would  absolutely  con- 
tradict the  primitive  truth  which  was  in  me, 
and  of  which  I  believe  them  to  be  the  off- 
spring; and  yet  I  am  certain  that  they  are 
right  in  their  opposition  to  this  temporary 
66 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

truth  and  to  me,  and  that  their  contra- 
diction is  the  mysterious  daughter  of  a 
more  profound  and  more  essential  truth." 

Maeterlinck's  active  symbol,  therefore, 
is  one  as  inexorable  as  fate — one  before 
which  it  were  best  to  remain  silent,  watch- 
ing its  mysterious  ways  which  have  to  be 
fathomed,  listening  to  the  messages  which 
it  might  bring  from  out  the  inner  life.* 
Active  as  it  is,  this  symbol — this  image 
with  its  organic  life — is  much  nearer  the 
universe,  since  it  obeys  law  more  profound- 
ly than  man,  who  opposes  because  of  his 
abstract  knowledge  of  justice.  The  sym- 
bol is  always  right.  "If  I  listen,"  declares 
Maeterlinck,  "it  is  the  universe  and  eternal 
order  which  thinks  in  my  place,  and,  with- 
out fatigue,  I  shall  go  beyond  myself.  If 
I  resist,  one  might  say  that  I  am  struggling 
against  God." 

This  brings  us  into  the  realm  of  re- 

*See  Matthew  Arnold's  "The  Buried  Life." 
67 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

ligion,  where  the  symbol  is  ever  present. 
Maeterlinck  courted  the  unseen,  whereas 
his  friend  Van  Lerberghe  always  possessed 
a  religious  fear  of  mystery.  But  before 
the  symbol  Maeterlinck  bowed  in  humble 
alertness,  not  in  any  fear.  Passive  in  body 
before  it,  he  was  yet  keenly  alive  to  every 
variation  of  its  inward  unfolding.  This 
contemplation  made  him  seek  silence  and 
solitude,  not  as  a  hater  of  society,  like  Van 
Lerberghe,  but  as  a  philosopher  better 
able  than  others  to  observe  those  actions 
and  reactions  of  outward  life  which  are 
moved  by  the  hidden  law  of  things. 

Both  Carlyle  and  Goethe  were  follow- 
ers of  the  Swiss  adage,  "Sprechen  ist  sil- 
bern,  Schweigen  ist  golden";  Carlyle  trans- 
muted it  into  distinctive  significance, 
"Speech  is  of  Time,  Silence  is  of  Eter- 
nity." But  Maeterlinck  found  out  that  the 
static  exposition  of  life  is  inconsistent,  and 
even  Carlyle  found  that  it  took  many  vol- 
umes of  characteristic  speech  to  expound 
68 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

his  philosophy  of  silence.  It  is  well  to 
believe  that  we  are  on  the  verge  of  revela- 
tion; the  symbol  affords  the  spirit  room  to 
stretch.  Creeds,  therefore,  that  worship 
in  restricted  formalism,  lose  sight  of  Car- 
lyle's  statement  regarding  Jesus  of  Naza- 
reth as  the  divinest  symbol:  "Higher  has 
the  human  Thought  not  yet  reached:  this 
is  Christianity  and  Christendom ;  a  symbol 
of  quite  perennial,  infinite  character; 
whose  significance  will  ever  demand  to  be 
anew  inquired  into,  and  anew  made  mani- 
fest."* 

As  yet,  in  Maeterlinck,  there  was  no 
manifestation  of  that  medievalism  which 
later  took  hold  of  him;  of  that  strictly 
scientific  interest  in  modern  thought  which 
was  soon  to  colour  his  essays.  He  was 
an  impressionist  dabbling  in  the  impres- 
sionist's art,  and  sensing  a  truth  which 
was,  after  a  deeper  reading  of  the  mystic 

*See   "Sartor   Resartus,"   Book   III.,    Chap.    III.: 
Symbols. 

69 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

to  escape  the  indefinite  emotionalism 
which  the  decadent  symbolists  affected.  In 
"Serres  Chaudes,"  he  assumed  a  literary 
pose  which  soon  became  an  obsession  with 
him,  passing  from  iteration  and  a  quick 
succession  of  images — alike  used  by  Van 
Lerberghe  and  the  Japanese — to  mere 
shadow  dramas  which  kept  the  same  low 
grade  of  emotion,  created  by  what  Richard 
Hovey*  deemed  to  be  the  most  effective 
use  of  parallelism  since  the  days  of  the  He- 
brews. 

In  "The  Treasure  of  the  Humble," 
Maeterlinck  asserts  that  "  a  poem  draws 
the  nearer  to  beauty  and  to  loftier  truth 
in  the  measure  that  it  eliminates  words 
that  merely  explain  the  action,  and  substi- 
tutes for  them  others  that  reveal,  not  the 
so-called  'soul-state,'  but  I  know  not  what 
intangible  and  unceasing  striving  of  the 
soul  towards  its  own  beauty  and  truth." 

*See  Hovey,  Richard :  Nineteenth  Century,  March, 
i8&5,  PP-  491-96. 

TO 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

It  is  difficult  to  believe  that  Maeterlinck 
had  that  high  object  which  is  at  the  basis 
of  wisdom  and  which  characterizes  the 
seer,  when  he  was  under  the  full  influence 
of  the  "Cymbalists."  His  one  claim  to 
originality  in  "Serres  Chaudes"  rested  in 
the  effective  way  he  laid  on  images  which 
were  not  complimentary,  and  which  were 
in  no  way  essential.  Through  a  psychol- 
ogy which  permeated  morbid  things,  he 
discovered  a  principle  of  art  which  ex- 
ploited the  seen  only  that  it  might  suggest 
the  unseen. 

He  had  a  long  way  to  travel  before  a 
"fad"  became  a  theory  with  him,  and  be- 
fore this  theory  passed  into  a  more  tenable 
philosophy.  His  symbol  was  once  far- 
thest removed  from  experience;  before 
it,  he  considered  human  thought  as  secon- 
dary. But  he  learned  differently  from 
Emerson  in  later  years — Emerson  the 
transcendentalist,  who  nevertheless  bade 
the  poet  hold  symbols  lightly.  "All  sym- 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

bols  are  fluxional," — thus  speaks  the  Sage 
of  Concord — "all  language  is  vehicular 
and  transitive,  and  is  good,  as  ferries  and 
horses  are,  for  conveyance,  not  as  farms 
and  houses  are,  for  homestead." 

Maeterlinck  was  not  always  to  dwell  in 
the  symbols  of  his  youth,  any  more  than 
he  was  destined  to  remain  within  the  shad- 
ow of  death.  Yet  he  was  not  to  depart 
from  his  method  in  his  volume  following 
the  publication  of  "Serres  Chaudes"  in 
1889.  The  fact  is  that  his  formless  poems 
were  simply  artistic  notes  for  his  formless 
dramas  to  come.  As  Van  Bever  says,  they 
begin  a  cycle  which  ends  with  "Aglavaine 
et  Selysette"  on  the  drama  side,  and 
which  takes  a  new  departure  in  "The 
Treasure  of  the  Humble." 

"Serres  Chaudes"*  is  a  blind  groping 
after  something  felt;  it  is  revolutionary  in 
that  Maeterlinck,  with  Van  Lerberghe  and 

'First  published  in  1889;  Paris:  Vanier.     Georges 
Minnc,  illustrator,  1900,  Bruxelles:  P.  Lacomblez. 

72 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

his  other  associates,  asked  no  sanction  of 
convention.  Free  verse  and  free  emotion 
were  the  mandates  of  the  school.  In  some 
respects,  like  Sidney  Lanier,  they  aimed  for 
a  peculiar  verbal  music  that  paid  no 
thought  to  such  formalism  as  made  Tenny- 
son lyrical;  in  other  respects  they  were 
as  uncouth  in  expression,  as  Walt  Whit- 
man, without  possessing  any  of  his  big- 
souled  democracy.  The  appeal  was  made 
directly  to  the  senses,  not  by  systematized 
thought,  but  by  rapidly  projected  images 
which  stood  alone,  yet  which  aimed  to  be 
drawn  together,  producing  definite  impres- 
sion. A  jumble  of  such  impressions  leaves 
one  in  subtle  mood;  there  is  no  questioning 
as  to  whether  the  mood  is  right  or  not. 
These  poets  painted  mood  for  its  own 
sake,  and  a  stagnant  oppressiveness  was 
the  result.  The  poetic  outlines  are  es- 
sences out  of  which  tragedy  might  come. 
Such  indefiniteness  Maeterlinck  slowly 
outgrew,  and  the  change  became  so  appar- 
73 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

cnt  that  one  critic  declared  the  relationship 
between  "Serres  Chaudes"  and  "Wisdom 
and  Destiny"  to  be  that  existing  between 
poison  and  antidote.  Maeterlinck  escaped 
the  corroding  effect  of  the  morbidness 
characterizing  this  school,  though  he  car- 
ried with  him  the  romanticism  and  peculiar 
symbolism  born  of  it.  His  friend,  Van 
Lerberghe,*  died  in  1908,  a  victim  of  that 
disheartened  outlook  which  comes  with  as- 
ceticism on  one  hand  and  with  misdirected 
emotionalism  on  the  other. 

For  the  Jesuit  training  at  college  made 
greater  impress  on  Van  Lerberghe  than 
on  Maeterlinck.t  The  latter  could  never 
have  written  a  canticle  on  the  Immaculate 
Conception,  the  former  could  never  have 

*Van  L.  was  author  of  "Les  Flaireurs,"  "Chanson 
d'Eve."  which  was  set  to  music  by  Gabriel  Faure,  and 
"Pan." 

tSee  references:  Alfred  Vallette:  "Maurice  Mae- 
terlinck et  Charles  Van  Lerberghe,"  Mercure  de 
France,  Oct.,  1890;  Albert  Mockel :  "Charles  Van 
Lerberghe,"  Soc.  Mercure  de  France,  April,  1904, 
50:5-33  (Bibliography)  ;  Mercure  de  France,  XXVI: 
227-28;  XXX:  793;  XXXI:  258;  L:  575-76. 

74 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

been  so  independent  in  thought.  Maeter- 
linck felt  himself  free  to  express  emotion 
freely;  Van  Lerberghe,  with  the  same  care 
in  the  use  of  delicate  language,  amidst  the 
same  art  atmosphere  and  Nature,  was 
more  given  to  classicism.  For  that  reason, 
the  Jesuit  Fathers  were  at  first  more  will- 
ing to  accept  Van  Lerberghe  than  Maeter- 
linck. 

But  no  sooner  had  Rossetti  and  Burne- 
Jones  won  these  two  than  the  Jesuit  spirit 
frowned  upon  them.  Because  the  two  sang 
of  death  in  "Les  Flaireurs"  and  in  "L'ln- 
truse,"  people  called  these  friends  imita- 
tors, but,  as  I  have  said,  they  did  not  in- 
fluence each  other  so  much  as  they  were 
influenced  by  the  same  things — a  Botticelli 
or  a  Pre-Raphaelite.  Where  they  departed 
was  in  the  practice  of  their  art.  Maeter- 
linck's whole  "marionette"  conception  was 
based  on  an  adherence  to  violence;  that  is 
why,  in  his  small  dramas,  he  made  so  much 
of  outward  accessory — the  same  detail 
75 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

that  brought  Poc's  tales  to  the  point  of 
horror.  Maeterlinck's  legendary  heroines 
lived  in  fever,  Van  Lerberghe's  in  seduc- 
tive calm.  The  difference  in  concepts  be- 
tween the  two  was  a  difference  in  solidity; 
the  one  shadowy  and  atmospheric,  the 
other,  as  Albert  Mockel  says,  like  Fra 
Angelico,  without  his  ecstasy.  Van  Ler- 
berghe  was  a  scholar,  but  one  whose 
thought  was  turned  away  from  the  general 
current  of  progress.*  He  was  a  stoic, 
permitting  no  compromises  either  with 
himself  or  for  the  sake  of  the  public;  he 
was  an  obscurist,  believing  that  the  truest 
is  the  least  understood;  he  was  a  dreamer 
in  the  religious  sense;  and  his  love  for 
science  found  outlet  in  a  metaphysical  phi- 
losophy that  could  not  be  applied.  The 
world  was  an  allegory  to  him,  and  abstract 
beauty,  like  pure  reason,  was  the  real 
thing.  He  was  a  man  without  a  particle 

*Maeterlinck   wrote   on   Van   Lerberghe    for   the 
Figaro. 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

of  sympathy  with  the  human.  Yet  of 
Maeterlinck  he  always  wrote  with  affec- 
tion.* 

"Serres  Chaudes"  represents  the  gro- 
ping of  a  soul  trying  to  find  itself — over- 
powered by  destiny,  discouraged  by  dark- 
ness, sickened,  made  restless  and  faint  with 
strange  hallucinations.  Out  of  such  pools 
of  emotion  came  dim  shadows  of  persons 
whose  hearts  beat,  yet  whose  hands  melted 
in  unreality.  During  1896,  fifteen  songsf 
by  Maeterlinck  were  published,  containing 
much  of  ballad  treatment,  with  dramatic 
touches  due  to  that  repetition,  that  paral- 
lelism, which  Hovey  praised.  Those  hot- 
house flowers  of  Maeterlinck's  fevered 

*See  letter  to  Van  Bever,  May  13,  1904.  He  also 
wrote  an  appreciation  of  "Serres  Chaudes"  in  Albert 
Mockel's  Wallonie. 

tlllustrated  by  Charles  Dondelet ;  Paris :  Gande. 
Contained  also  in  Lecomblez's  1900  ed.  of  "Serres 
Chaudes."  Twelve  of  these  songs  were  translated 
by  Martin  Schiitze  and  published  in  a  limited  ed., 
1902,  by  Ralph  Fletcher  Seymour,  with  an  Introduc- 
tion. See  Hovey's  translation  of  "Et  s'il  revenait 
tin  jour"  in  "Last  Songs  of  Vagabondia,"  as  well 
as  Mary  J.  Serrano's  translations  in  Critic,  41 :543-56, 

77 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

brain  were  the  forced  blossoms  of  youthful 
self-consciousness;  they  came  from  no 
stress  of  soul,  but  from  an  attitude  of  the 
artist  toward  art.  Maeterlinck's  growth 
began  when  he  found  that  he  needs  must 
grope  in  order  to  collect  himself.  Thus 
early,  he  was  dimly  conscious  of  an  interior 
life,  even  as  Van  Lerberghe  was  happiest 
while  listening  to  an  interior  music.  But 
as  yet,  Maeterlinck  was  not  ready  to  ac- 
cept any  interior  morality.  Poe  himself 
never  created  more  fragile  or  more  sickly 
poetry  than  is  to  be  found  in  "Serres 
Chaudes." 

Henley  has  written  verses  in  hospital, 
but  none  so  reeking  with  the  ether  of  half- 
consciousness.  Maeterlinck,  the  artist,  al- 
most speaks  inarticulately,  as  phantoms 
push  their  way  through  fumes  of  morbid- 
ity. Only  fevered  brains  have  such  ter- 
rors; the  soul  is  in  continual  ennui,  and  it 
likens  itself  to  inanimate  Nature  which  suf- 
fers in  the  same  fashion  as  mortals.  Leaves 
78 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

die  of  fever,  and  the  stars  have  parched 
lips  of  longing.  Strange  plants  there  are 
in  this  early  garden  of  Maeterlinck. 
Amidst  ice  and  snow,  and  rains  that  deny 
fruitfulness,  maidens  water  ferns  near 
poisonous  grottoes  in  which  lurk  women 
who  sleep,  mayhap  never  to  wake  again. 
The  symbol  is  clearer  in  those  scenes  which 
occur  in  "The  Blue  Bird"  ("L'Oiseau 
Bleu"),  dealing  with  the  luxuries  and  the 
illnesses  of  the  world. 

The  brain  may  grow  its  weeds,  and 
blossom  forth  queer  flowers  of  remorse; 
red  stems  of  hate  may  fringe  the  horizon 
of  dreams;  love  may  offer  its  verdant 
fields  as  well  as  the  dim  shadows  of  its  in- 
accessible lanes.  These  are  the  "Serres 
Chaudes"  of  Maeterlinck,  wherein  the  fo- 
liage of  the  heart  is  strange,  though  none 
the  less  exuding  of  oppressive  odors. 
Pleasures  unfold  like  water-lilies;  desires 
bend  like  palms  that  find  reflection  in  a 
lake  man  calls  his  soul.  In  such  a  garden, 
79 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

white  prayers  float  toward  the  crystal  blue 
—a  blue  that  hangs  over  us  bell-shaped, 
with  sounds  of  life  within  like  tones  of  un- 
intelligible music. 

What  kind  are  the  flowers  that  bloom  in 
a  soul  that  burns?  Before  him  pass  roses 
of  dead  hopes,  bathed  in  the  dew  of  a 
heavy  spirit.  Strange  vapours  rise  in  the 
mind,  and  armies  clash  in  the  night  of 
one's  soul.  Those  who  move  in  such  la- 
goons and  marshes  are  the  most  feeble, 
the  most  sick.  Within  the  soul,  there  are 
strange  towers  in  which  mystic  abstractions 
die  of  thirst.  In  one  poem,  Maeterlinck 
writes: 

II  y  a  tin  long  chemin  de  mon  coeur  a  mon  ame ! 
Et  toutes  les  sentinelles  sont  mortes  a  leur  poste ! 
[It  is  a  long  way  from  my  heart  to  my  soul! 
And  every  sentinel  is  dead  at  his  post!] 

What  is  the  vista  in  the  suburbs  of  such  a 
soul? 

"One  Sunday  mom  the  hemlock  was  cut  down, 
And  from  the  convent  could  be  seen  to  pass 
Strange  vessels  on  the  sea — 

80 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

A  day  of  fasting  and  a  sunlit  day! 
While  the  swans  drooped  beneath  a  loathsome  bridge ; 
The  trees  around  the  prison  were  pruned  down. 
One  afternoon  in  June  they  carried  medicine, 
And  food  for  the  sick  was  spread  beneath  the  sky." 

These  far-fetched  and  unrelated  pictures 
produce  a  disagreeable  sensation,  but  they 
none  the  less  have  an  aroma  peculiarly 
their  own;  they  court  a  lassitude  that  not 
only  affects  the  human  quality  of  the 
poetry,  but  the  landscape  as  well.  The 
soul  is  peopled  with  strange  animals  of 
hate  and  lies;  we  pursue  and  are  pursued. 
Sin  is  likened  to  a  yellow  dog;  temptations 
flock  like  sheep.  Sometimes  a  faint  flash 
of  beauty  affords  a  lyric  strain,  pure  in  the 
midst  of  impure  atmosphere.  The  soul 
cries  out: 

"Have  pity  on  my  prayers, 

Feeble  flowers  in  a  glass  of  water !" 

The  warmth  of  sunlight  does  not  warm 
in  these  poems;  the  moon  spreads  white 
coldness  and  shadow  through  the  soul. 
What  so  terrible  as  the  hospital  of  a  fe- 
81 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

vered  brain!  Assuredly,  if  there  be  any 
truth  or  sincerity  in  the  poetry  of  Maurice 
Maeterlinck,  if  these  images  came  from 
him,  they  measured  the  heavy  and  dragged 
travail  of  a  spirit  only  dimly  realizing  it- 
self. These  pictures  make  a  veritable 
bramble  bush,  now  a  forest  of  wounded, 
again  an  oriental  verdure  in  a  grotto  of 
ice.  Far  down  in  a  coal  mine  strange  vege- 
tation finds  root;  in  the  dark  recesses  of 
one's  soul,  strange  passions  sprout — pas- 
sions that  later,  in  their  full  luxuriousness, 
become  enemies  to  the  soul. 

Such  sombreness  is  in  direct  contrast 
with  Maeterlinck's  later  philosophy. 
These  pale  ballads  are  cries  of  anguish 
without  reason;  the  soul  bleeds  white  blood 
of  dreams.  Seasons  are  mixed  in  a  strange 
desire  to  have  snow  and  ice  cover  fields 
that  are  green;  figures  are  introduced,  giv- 
ing one  feeble  impressions  of  souls  that 
have  been  resurrected  from  the  dead. 
These  poems  are  sense  impressions.  Re- 
82 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

flections,  visions,  expectations,  prayers, 
come  forth  in  mistiness — inarticulate,  un- 
canny, and  without  hope.  The  soul  burns 
as  the  eyelids  do  in  fever,  and  between 
hot  and  cold,  one  is  destined  to  toss  in 
torture.  Spectre  hands  touch  the  tired 
brow,  while  the  soul  moves  through  a 
world  of  grotesque  relationships. 

"Serres  Chaudes,"  therefore,  while  it 
can  never  be  regarded  as  healthy  or  as 
beautiful,  must  be  acknowledged  as  re- 
markable— a  species  of  literary  experi- 
mental psychology,  affording  hints  of  a 
treatment  later  to  be  utilized  with  such 
effect  in  "L'Intruse."  Maeterlinck's  sim- 
plicity of  word  structure  is  also  here  de- 
fined with  clearness  and  in  faint  strokes. 
The  first  hint  of  occultism  is  felt  in  these 
half-formed  verses — fevered  shudders  of 
a  soul  in  distress,  a  mind  outside  of  itself 
and  talking  of  strange  visions. 

In  the  fifteen  songs  that  followed  later 
(1896),  these  shadows  take  more  definite 
83 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

shape,  though  still  in  meaning  they  are  in- 
definite. Maeterlinck  came  out  of  the  peri- 
od of  malaria  with  a  theory  he  now  sought 
to  put  into  practice.  The  fact  that  this  the- 
ory needed  explanation  made  him  write 
upon  the  subjects  of  static  drama  and  of 
the  buried  life.  He  rose  from  the  sick  bed 
of  "Serres  Chaudes"  with  at  least  an  ob- 
ject in  view:  to  create  a  drama  of  the  un- 
expressible  in  terms  of  the  expressed. 

The  heroines  of  Maeterlinck's  plays  are 
sketched  in  these  songs.  The  idea  and 
symbol  in  the  following  poem  shall  recur 
in  "The  Seven  Princesses"  with  fuller 
meaning. 

"She  has  chained  her  within  a  grotto, 
She  has  placed  a  sign  on  the  gate ; 
The  maiden  has   forgotten   the  light, 
And   the   key   has    fallen   into   the   sea. 

"She  waited  the  days  of  summer : 
She  waited  more  than  seven  years. — 
Each  year  a  traveller  passed  by. 

"She  waited  the  days  of  winter; 
And  while  waiting,  her  hair 
Recalled  the  light. 

84 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 


"It   sought   and    found, 
It  slipped  between  stones, 
And  shone  upon  the  rocks. 

"One  evening  the  traveller  passed  again. 
He  did  not  understand  the  light, 
And  dared  not  approach  it. 

"He  believes  it  is  a  strange  sign, 
He  believes  it  is  a  source  of  gold, 
He  believes  it  is  the  sport  of  angels, 
He  turns  about  and  passes  again." 


There  is  more  humanity  than  symbolism  in 
"And  If,"  so  beautifully  translated  by 
Hbvey.  Though  there  is  the  ever-present 
golden  ring,  and  the  lamp  and  door,  the 
symbol  is  clear  and  plain,  the  story  poign- 
ant and  definite.  In  the  third  song,  we 
find  strands  of  a  philosophy  which  the 
"Treasure  of  the  Humble"  exploits.  Three 
maids  are  killed,  and  in  their  hearts  are 
found  happiness,  tenderness,  and  wretch- 
edness. But  from  the  blood  of  happiness 
springs  a  serpent;  from  tenderness,  lambs; 
and  from  wretchedness,  arch-angels.  The 
mystic  three  is  used  to  repletion,  though 
it  is  decorative  rather  than  significant. 
85 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

In  these  songs,  maids  with  blindfolded 
eyes  seek  their  destinies,  three  blind  sisters 
with  lamps  of  gold  climb  towers,  flames 
flicker  before  closed  doors.  Strange  out- 
ward manifestations  portend  the  action 
and  reaction  of  strange  undercurrents 
that  spin  silently  and  inevitably.  It  is  the 
same  Rossetti  decorativeness  used  in  the 
dramas.  No  better  sketch  of  "Barbe- 
Bleue"  than  that  in  the  simple  lines — char- 
acteristic of  the  ballad  form: 


"The  seven  daughters  of  Orlamonde, 

When  the  fairy  was  dead, 
The  seven  daughters  of  Orlamonde, 

Sought  the  doors. 

"Their  seven  lamps  have  been  lighted, 

The  towers  are  opened, 
Four  hundred  halls  unlocked, 

Without  rinding  the  day.    .    .    . 

"They  reach  echoing  grottoes, 

And  they  descend ; 
And  in  a  closed  door, 

They  find  a  golden  key. 

"They  see  the  ocean  through  the  crevices, 

And  they  fear  to  die; 
They  beat  upon  the  closed  door, 

Without  daring  to  open  it    ... 

86 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

Maeterlinck's  poetry  has  never  changed  in 
its  outlines,  in  its  simple  form,  in  its  ballad 
sentiment.  Songs  occur  in  "Aglavaine  et 
Selysette"  and  in  "Sister  Beatrice,"  but  al- 
ways the  same  song  varied.  I  should  say 
that  as  a  poet  of  slight  song,  laden  with 
mysticism,  Maeterlinck  is  happiest  when 
he  is  nearest  tragedy,  rather  than  when 
he  is  striving  to  express  dank  moods.  His 
pale  princesses,  who  seek  in  disordered 
manner,  represent  his  blind  gropings — 
gropings  which  were  to  find  light  through 
his  great  quality  of  an  open  soul  wanting 
the  light.  Had  I  never  seen  the  essays  of 
Maeterlinck,  I  should  have  declared  that 
the  inertness  of  "Serres  Chaudes"  was  not 
constitutional.  His  friends  all  dropped 
along  the  way,  but  Maurice  Maeterlinck 
went  on. 


CHAPTER  III 

DRAMATIC  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

"What  we  see  upon  a  stage  is  body  and 
bodily  action;  what  we  are  conscious  of 
in  reading  is  almost  exclusively  the  mind, 
and  its  movements." — Charles  Lamb,  "On 
the  Tragedies  of  Shakespeare." 

I 

IT  is  an  easy  matter  for  a  writer  gifted  with 
the  dramatic  sense,  to  accept  the  beat- 
en paths  of  the  theatre;  it  is  even  easy  to 
excel  in  a  school  which  has  been  established 
through  the  dominant  example  of  a  master 
craftsman.  German  mysticism  and  the 
ferment  characterizing  the  social  history 
of  modern  Germany  have  influenced 
Hauptmann  and  Sudermann,  but  they  were 
likewise  followers  of  Ibsen.  It  was  far 
more  healthy  for  them  that  dramatic  lit- 
erature should  adhere  to  the  realism  of  Ib- 
sen than  to  the  naturalism  of  Zola;  hence, 
89 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

the  problem  play — or  the  externalizing  of 
those  laws  governing  society  and  the  indi- 
vidual— became  dominant  on  the  stage. 

Audiences  were  accustomed  to  Sardou 
in  France,  to  the  artificiality  of  Scribe,  to 
the  melodrama  of  Pixerecourt  and  Du- 
cange, — a  melodrama  not  unlike  that  of 
Kotzebue.  More  than  a  year  has  to  pass, 
also,  before  such  a  force  as  Hugo  or  as 
Dumas  can  be  discarded  for  a  contracted 
stage  and  less  heroic  figures.  In  fact,  the 
poets  who  were  drawn  to  the  theatre  in  the 
latter  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  did 
not  forsake  romanticism  on  a  large  scale. 
D'Anmmzio,  Stephen  Phillips,  and  Ros- 
tand have  not  departed  very  far  from  old 
models. 

A  glance  into  stage  history  will  show 
how  very  crude  the  handling  of  supernat- 
uralism  has  always  been ;  how  literal  Shake- 
speare's ghosts,  how  declamatory  his 
witches.  There  is  just  reason  in  Charles 
Lamb's  dislike  for  what  he  was  prone  to 
90 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

call  clap-trap  visualizing — more  so  during 
his  time  than  if  he  had  lived  in  the  pres- 
ent, when  the  psychology  of  the  switch- 
board has  been  brought  to  such  a  height  of 
perfection.  If  we  start  upon  the  principle 
that  an  actor  can  never  escape  the  theat- 
rical, can  never  measure  the  exact  progress 
of  an  emotion,  then  the  stage  becomes  "as 
sounding  brass  or  a  tinkling  cymbal." 
Lamb  abhorred  the  acting  of  Shake- 
speare's tragedies,  since  he  gave  them 
wholly  the  quality  of  mind  and  spirit, 
rather  than  of  effective  representation. 

As  a  poet,  Maeterlinck  was  nurtured,  as 
we  have  seen,  in  a  school  of  emotional  ro- 
manticism— the  same  school  that  haled 
Poe,  effectively  translated  by  Mallarme. 
From  "Serres  Chaudes,"  he  learned  the 
value  of  mood  in  art,  and  he  now  turned 
to  the  theatre,  intent  on  creating  emotional 
effect.  This  he  did  by  strict  adherence  to 
one  mood  in  which  he  persisted  to  so  great 
an  extent  that  critics  deplored  his  gloom 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

and  discussed  him  as  a  decadent.  Nordau, 
ever  on  the  alert  for  degeneracy,  uttered 
a  diatribe  against  the  Ollendorfian  dia- 
logue, the  gasping  iteration  which  Maeter- 
linck used. 

But  in  determining  Maeterlinck's  dra- 
matic theory,  we  must  remember  that  our 
approach  is  from  within,  outward;  that  the 
soul  speaks  inarticulately,  uttering  half- 
sounds  which  none  the  less  represent  whole 
states.  When  a  dramatist  selects  to  deal 
with  broken  minds,  with  phantom  people, 
with  unusual  surrounding, — when  he  does 
all  in  his  power  to  depart  from  the  nor- 
mal, then  he  must  look  upon  his  scene, 
not  with  the  healthy  eye  of  himself,  but 
with  the  jaundiced  eye  of  his  characters. 
Shakespeare  depicts  distraction  in  a  way 
akin  to  the  Elizabethan  manner  of  art; 
Maeterlinck,  in  a  different  current,  selects 
another,  using  Shakespeare  and  his  con- 
temporaries as  models. 

His  art  spirit,  nevertheless,  was  float- 
92 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

ing  in  ether  when  he  turned  to  the  theatre, 
but  though  we  must  discount  much  of  his 
theory,  even  as  he  himself  later  discounted 
it,  we  have  no  justification  in  scoring  it  as 
Francisque  Sarcey  did.*  For  this  much 
Maeterlinck  has  proven  by  his  misty  ma- 
rionette dramas :  that  the  unseen  is  potent 
and  is  largely  determined  by  the  value  of 
speech,  by  the  quiet  inevitability  of  the 
scene.  There  was  nothing  new  in  his  per- 
sistent resorting  to  dark  backgrounds 
against  which  his  characters  shone  lumi- 
nous. But  whereas  Spenser's  "Faery 
Queen"  was  luxuriant  in  its  allegory  and 
in  its  natural  setting,  Maeterlinck's  "The 
Princess  Maleine"  is  formal  and  signifi- 
cantly isolated  in  its  objective  arrange- 
ment. In  a  night,  as  it  were,  he  became 
a  manipulator  of  meteors  and  constella- 
tions, as  strange  forebodings  of  imminent 
events.  "We  feel,"  writes  Mr.  Archer,f 

*See  "Forty  Years  at  the  Theatre,"  1893. 
tSee    "A    Pessimistic    Playwright,"    Fortnightly, 
56:346;   1891.     Archer   suggests   that   one  compare 

93 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

"as  though  the  poet  were  trying  to  appal 
us  with  a  trump  lantern  at  the  top  of  a 
pole."  In  creating  this  supernaturalism, 
therefore,  the  machinery  in  Maeterlinck's 
dramas  becomes  disconcerting  to  the  spec- 
tator and  wearing  upon  his  nerves.  The 
marionette  plays  are  nervous  whenever 
they  seek  to  escape  action. 

But  above  all  things,  Maeterlinck's  chief 
contribution  to  modern  drama  has  been  his 
insistence  upon  depicting  man's  attitude  in 
the  presence  of  eternity  and  mystery — "to 
attempt  to  unveil  the  eternal  character 
hidden  under  the  accidental  character- 
istics of  the  lover,  the  father,  and  the 
husband." 

Hence,  the  accidental  elements  in  Mae- 
terlinck's stage  pictures  are  kept  simple, 
his  one  desire  being  to  have  the  essence 
felt.  Before  the  infinite,  our  modern 

with  "Maleine"  the  tragedy  which  he  attributes  to 
Webster,  but  which  Schelling  in  "Elizabethan 
Drama"  assigns  to  Tourneur, — "Atheists  Tragedy." 
See  Schelling,  i  -.564. 

94 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

theatre  must  stand  in  humbleness  for  the 
real  secret  of  life.  But  since  "inward  per- 
spectives .  .  .  disappear  before  the  foot- 
lights," shall  not  the  theatre  merely  be 
used  as  an  accessory,  and  shall  not  the 
theatre's  accessories  themselves  be  reduced 
merely  to  the  lowest  and  most  passive 
terms?  Words  and  ideas  expressed  can 
never  be  full  value  of  the  force  behind 
them,  but  the  poet  must  suggest  that  force, 
if  he  has  the  power.  And  it  is  this  power 
which  is  the  peculiar  forte  of  Maurice 
Maeterlinck.  Behind  sensuous  reality 
lurks  the  real  drama  of  this  marionette 
theatre;  behind  the  word  lies  the  real 
meaning  of  life.  Hence,  Maeterlinck  very 
well  represents  the  spiritual  restlessness  of 
the  age  which  is  conscious  of  unseen  force, 
but  which  is  not  quite  sure  of  its  direction 
or  of  its  expression.* 

*Soissons,  S.  C.  de:  "Maeterlinck  as  a  Reformer 
of  the  Drama."  Contemp.  Rev.,  Nov.,  1004,  86: 
699-708. 

Maeterlinck:  "The  Modern  Drama."  Cornhill 
Mag.,  80:166-73.  "Double  Garden,"  pp.  115-35. 

95 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

Outward  life  is  but  symbol  of  the  inner 
life,*  and  it  is  the  outward  scientific  pro- 
bing which  is  enriching  our  knowledge  of 
the  unknown.  Maeterlinck's  advance  in 
dramatic  theoryt  must  therefore  be  fol- 
lowed along  experimental  lines,  for  he  is 
no  dogmatist,  however  much  he  may  think 
along  the  same  high  plane  of  philosophy. 
He  is  not  much  troubled  with  the  drama- 
turgic laws  of  Aristotle.  His  theory  of 
drama  changes  with  his  own  change;  the 
man  and  the  artist  are  essentially  one.J 

Soissons  sees  in  modern  symbolism  the 
old  mysticism  explained  away  by  science, 
and  since  "Maeterlinck's  ideas  are  identi- 

*D.  M.  J. :  "Maurice  Maeterlinck :  Mystic  and  Dra- 
matist." Westminster  Rev.,  April,  1899,  151 1409. 

tHills,  E.  C. :  "The  Evolution  of  Maeterlinck's 
Dramatic  Theory."  Colorado  Coll.  Pub.,  v.  2,  pp.  29- 
40.  Lang.  Ser.,  no.  18. 

Jervey,  H. :  "Maeterlinck  vs.  the  Conventional 
Drama."  Scwanee  Rev.,  11:187,  Apr.,  1903. 

^Henderson,  A. :  "Maeterlinck  as  a  Dramatic 
Artist."  Sewance  Rev.,  12:207. 

Symons,  Arthur:  "Plays,  Acting,  and  Music";  "A 
Theory  of  the  Stage." 

96 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

cal  with  the  results  of  scientific  experi- 
ment," it  is  necessary  to  emphasize  in  man 
"the  mysterious  and  unfathomable  side." 
At  first,  Maeterlinck  approached  his  task 
in  the  spirit  of  the  Greek,  with  the  tech- 
nique of  the  romanticist.  He  learned  the 
elements  of  form  from  Shakespeare,  and 
cast  "The  Princess  Maleine"  in  that  form, 
but  he  disposed  of,  in  fact,  ignored  man's 
character  in  its  opposition  to  fate.  Later 
he  was  to  put  man's  will  against  the  forces 
of  life,  and  he  was  to  realize  that  charac- 
ter was  destiny.* 

Maeterlinck's  theatre,  therefore,  begins 
with  weakness,  for  in  the  face  of  destiny 
man  is  helpless,  and  his  greatest  hope  in 
reconciling  the  forces  of  fate  rests  in  his 
passiveness  to  a  power  so  vastly  more  pow- 
erful than  himself.  The  very  year  that 
Mirbeau  hailed  Maeterlinck  in  the  Figaro, 
the  latter  declared  his  artistic  principles  in 

*See  "L'Ornement  des  noces  spirituelles."    Intro., 
xxi. 

97 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

La  Jetine  Belgique  *  "Art,"  he  wrote,  "is 
a  temporary  mask,  under  which  the  un- 
known without  a  face,  puzzles  us.  It  is 
the  substance  of  eternity,  introduced  with- 
in us  by  a  distillation  of  infinity.  .  .  . 
A  dramatic  poem  was  a  work  of  art,  and 
bore  the  charming  characteristics  of  such 
a  work,  but  a  spectacle  on  the  stage  sud- 
denly frightened  the  swans  from  the  pond, 
and  threw  the  pearls  into  bottomless 
depths:  the  mystic  transparency  of  a  work 
of  art  disappeared.  King  Lear,  Hamlet, 
Othello,  Macbeth,  Romeo  and  Juliet 
should  not  be  performed.  Something  of 
Hamlet  dies  as  soon  as  we  see  him  dying 
on  the  stage." 

This  quality  that  acting  robs  from  art 
never  returns,  even  though  one  again  seeks 
communion  with  art;  the  stage  kills  a  mas- 
terpiece, for  the  very  reason  that  acciden- 
tal and  human  elements  are  inimical  to  the 

*See  La   Jeune   Belgique,    1890,   No.   9,   "Menus 
propos,  Le  Theatre." 

08 


Maurice  MaeterlincE 

symbol — that  symbol  "which  cannot  bear 
the  active  presence  of  a  man."  Maeter- 
linck was  thoroughly  in  accord  with  the 
Greeks  who  used  a  mask  in  tragedy;  this 
heightened  the  value  of  the  active  symbol ; 
it  allowed  that  inward  unfolding  which 
outward  action  usually  interrupts  and  over- 
accentuates. 

Hence,  Maeterlinck's  esthetic  creed 
finds  further  expression  in  these  words: 
"A  poem  which  I  see  on  the  stage  seems 
to  me  always  a  lie;  in  everyday  life  I  must 
see  man,  who  speaks  to  me,  because  the 
majority  of  his  words  have  no  meaning  at 
all  without  his  presence;  a  poem,  on  the 
contrary,  is  a  gathering  of  such  unusual 
words,  that  the  presence  of  the  poet  is  con- 
nected with  them  forever;  one  cannot  free 
from  voluntary  slavery  a  soul  dearer  than 
others,  in  order  to  replace  it  by  the  mani- 
festations of  another  soul,  almost  always 
insignificant,  for  in  that  moment  it  is  im- 
99 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

possible  to  assimilate  those  manifesta- 
tions." 

But  at  the  same  time  that  Maeterlinck 
was  interesting  himself  in  the  unknown 
forces  of  life,  he  was  likewise  picturing 
an  opalescent  feminism  that  was  new  to 
the  stage,  even  though  Ophelia  and  Prin- 
cess Maleine  are  near  relatives.  How  to 
depict  the  frail  body  in  the  toils  of  the 
forces  of  life  was  this  Belgian's  problem, 
for  if  one  examine  closely  all  of  his  hero- 
ines, it  will  be  realized  how  true  it  is  that 
childhood  seems  all  the  more  frail  in  the 
throes  of  passion,  and,  as  one  critic  de- 
clared, too  recently  come  from  the  free- 
dom of  the  infinite. 

Maeterlinck  was  very  much  concerned 
in  his  theory  of  drama,  so  much  so  that 
he  sought  on  all  occasions  to  explain  his 
methods — as  earnestly  as  Poe  described,  in 
"The  Philosophy  of  Composition,"  how 
he  constructed  "The  Raven."  The  pref- 
ace to  the  "marionette"  plays  fully  sets 

IOO 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

forth  Maeterlinck's  detestation  of  the  ac- 
tor, who  reproduces  the  ordinary  life  of 
the  character  he  portrays,  rather  than  the 
superior  life  the  poet  had  in  mind.  The 
supreme  mission  of  art  is  to  reveal  the 
infinite.  Thus  early  the  bee  enters  Mae- 
terlinck's prose : 

"It  is  necessary,"  he  writes,  "that  art 
act  as  the  bees.  They  do  not  carry  to  the 
larvae  of  the  beehive  the  flowers  of  the 
fields  which  contain  their  future  and  their 
life.  The  larvae  die  under  these  flowers 
without  suspecting  anything.  It  is  neces- 
sary that  the  nutritive  bees  carry  to  these 
blind  nymphs  the  very  soul  of  these  flow- 
ers, and  it  is  only  then  that  they  find  in 
this  mysterious  honey,  without  knowing  it, 
the  substance  for  the  wings  which  one  day 
shall  carry  them  in  their  flight  through 
space." 

Now,  the  mystic  density  of  a  work  of 
art  disappears  with  representation,  and 
Maeterlinck  contends  that  such  great 
101 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

works  as  "Lear,"  "Hamlet,"  "Othello," 
and  "Macbeth"  are  not  able  to  be  acted  for 
the  very  reason  that  a  great  poem  which 
deals  primarily  with  humanity  does  not  rely 
on  scene  for  its  effect.  Once  let  the  prince 
escape  the  portals  of  imagination,  and  he 
ceases  "to  live  according  to  the  most  se- 
cret beauty  of  our  soul."  Hence,  one  has 
to  speak  of  the  Hamlet  of  dreams,  and  the 
Hamlet  of  the  stage — two  wholly  different 
beings  living  through  different  mediums. 
It  is  significant  how  persistently  Maeter- 
linck strove  to  give  expression  to  that  new 
beauty  which  he  wanted  the  stage  to  in- 
herit.* In  his  introduction,  written  to  Al- 
fred Sutro's  "The  Cave  of  Illusion,"  he 
has  advanced  beyond  that  hazy  confusion 
with  which  he  first  went  about  expressing 
the  unexpressed.  Here,  he  recognized  that 
stage  technique  must  change  in  order  to 
accommodate  the  change  in  mind  which 

*William    Archer:    "Maeterlinck    and    Mystery," 
Critic,  37:220. 

I O2 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

was  taking  place.  He  realized  that  a  revo- 
lution in  thought  was  being  effected,  but 
as  a  reformer  Maeterlinck  was  ever 
a  believer  in  evolution.  If  he  began 
as  an  iconoclast,  he  used  no  more  violent 
corrective  than  his  shadowy  expressions  of 
the  over-soul. 

Therefore,  Maeterlinck  pictures  the 
poet  in  this  introduction  as  conscious  of 
change,  yet  doubtful  how  best  to  alter  ex- 
pression in  order  to  suit  it.  The  poet  does 
not  yet  know  "under  what  forms  and  con- 
ditions, and  according  to  what  laws,  the 
higher  powers,  the  unintelligible  influences, 
the  fundamental  laws,  act  upon  our  desti- 
nies. A  moment  having  arrived  at  which 
he  cannot  loyally  postulate  the  anciently 
accepted  powers,  while  those  which  are  to 
replace  them  are  not  yet  fixed  and  have 
as  yet  no  name,  the  poet  hesitates,  gropes 
in  darkness,  and  dares  not  sally  forth  from 
the  refuge  of  the  mere  lyric." 

There  are  three  phases  of  art,  there- 
103 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

fore,  that  we  must  seek  in  the  dramas  of 
Maeterlinck.  Verbal  beauty  must  be  of  a 
distinctly  impressionistic  value;  Nature 
and  our  emotions  must  be  analyzed  and 
carefully  depicted;  and  finally,  as  the  atmo- 
spheric life  of  the  whole  poem,  the  un- 
known must  actively  surround  the  persons 
a  poet  creates,  giving  them  an  activity 
apart  from  their  worldly  interests.  One 
might  draw  a  diagram  of  those  life  forces 
which  Maeterlinck  began  with — Love, 
Jealousy,  Fear — and  approach  his  mar- 
ionette theory  with  this  picture  in  mind: 
"His  shield  of  life  is  a  field  sable;  its 
flag  floats  forever  at  half-mast  high.  The 
escutcheon  of  love  is  a  twilight  emblazoned 
with  dying  flames:  Death  might  be  imag- 
ined as  a  gateway  into  the  mist;  the  record 
of  Time  is  marked  as  the  hours  of  the  dial 
only  by  the  shadow  that  passes  until  the 
shadow  itself  is  lost  in  the  night."* 

*"M.   Maeterlinck,   Moralist   and  Artist."     Edin- 
burgh Rev.,  Apr.,  1901,  193 :35O-77. 
104 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

II 

Maeterlinck  had  Charles  Lamb  as  chief 
supporter  of  his  theory  that  real  master- 
pieces abhor  an  actor,  but  he  went  further 
and  attempted  by  the  most  slender  action 
to  create  the  spell  of  the  unseen,  to  show 
by  outward  repression  how  tense  the  in- 
ward force  of  destiny  was.  All  things 
were  in  the  hands  of  fate,  and  his  cry  was 
that  "the  wisdom  of  man  lies  in  not  at- 
tempting to  change  the  course  of  destiny." 
This  is  the  passiveness  one  finds  in  the 
marionette  plays,  unvarying  until  "Agla- 
vaine  et  Selysette"  is  reached.  Instead  of 
flesh  and  blood,  his  theatre  is  one  of  shad- 
ow; his  characters  are  not  real,  but  ro- 
mantic phantoms. 

He  gained  his  effects  by  the  persistent 
use  of  gloom,  by  the  strict  adherence  to 
symbols  which  recognized  no  realistic 
characterization,  and  by  the  lyric  strain  of 
terror,  of  tender  pity  that  borders  on  trag- 
edy and  that  is  born  of  mystery.  In  his 
105 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

dramas,  a  critic  writes,  "the  motives  are 
the  clairvoyance  of  old  age,  the  presenti- 
ment of  death,  the  almost  prophetic  insight 
of  simple  women  and  of  children,  the  re- 
vealing aspect  of  the  soul.  .  .  ."  His 
heroines  are  as  powerless  as  those  in  the 
fairy  tales,  but  though  he  sings  of  death, 
there  is  even  in  his  pessimism  a  strong  de- 
sire to  push  aside  the  veil;  and  the  pessi- 
mism is  all  the  more  poignant,  since  Mae- 
terlinck at  this  period  regards  the  task  as 
almost  beyond  human  power.  The  philos- 
ophy too  has  a  slight  tinge  of  irresponsi- 
bility about  it,  because  no  human  will,  ac- 
cording to  his  belief  at  the  time,  could 
change  the  course  of  destiny.  In  what 
manner  we  are  playthings  of  fate,  his  ma- 
rionette dramas  prove.  As  one  writer 
claims :  "Something  of  the  literal  and  posi- 
tive Latin  spirit  in  him  corrects  the  trans- 
cendentalism of  the  Teuton,  and  behind  his 
mediaeval  mise-en-scene,  with  its  ruined 
106 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

turrets,  errant  damsels,  and  names  out  of 
old  Kelt  romance,  what  disengages  itself 
is  the  form  and  pressure  of  our  actual 
life." 

In  "The  Treasure  of  the  Humble" 
there  are  two  essays  which  still  further  in- 
tensify Maeterlinck's  dramatic  theory. 
Tragedy  for  him  is  no  longer  to  be  found 
in  great  adventure,  but  in  the  life  of  every 
day.  Heretofore,  drama  had  contented 
itself  with  the  struggle  of  man  against  man, 
of  desire  against  desire;  but  there  is  even 
a  greater  spectacle  of  "the  soul,  self-con- 
tained in  the  midst  of  ever  restless  immen- 
sities." Man  and  his  destiny  are  above 
reason  and  sentiment;  man  deviating  from 
truth  is  of  more  interest  to  Maeterlinck 
than  the  lover  strangling  his  mistress. 
These  are  the  considerations  that  should 
be  placed  first  and  valued  above  action. 
Life  quickens  in  silence;  deep  forces  are 
set  vibrating  in  repose.  Hence,  Maeter- 
107 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

linck  asks:  "Is  life  always  at  its  sublimest 
in  a  kiss?  .  .  .  Does  the  soul  only 
flower  on  nights  of  storm?"  Depth,  in- 
tensity, spiritual  gravity — the  struggles  at- 
tendant upon  these,  struggles  which  hap- 
pen at  any  period  of  the  day — are  man's 
true  concern.  The  theatre  is  learning,  so 
thought  Maeterlinck  in  "The  Tragical  in 
Daily  Life,"  to  go  farthest  away  from 
bloodshed,  and  to  seek  for  the  silent  tears 
of  inward  weeping.  The  old  way  of  vio- 
lence is  primitive.  Was  not  a  moving-pic- 
ture representation  of  "Macbeth"  stopped 
by  the  police  of  Chicago,  because  its  action 
was  too  violent? 

It  is  a  noble  province  Maeterlinck  gives 
to  the  theatre — the  power  of  revelation. 
He  becomes  disappointed  whenever  the 
stage  fails  to  show  him  something  of  that 
presence,  power,  or  God  which  surrounds 
him  in  his  daily  life.  "I  was  yearning  for 
one  of  the  strange  moments  of  a  higher 
life  that  flit  unperceived  through  my 
108 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

dreariest  hours."  And  now  we  reach 
Maeterlinck's  fullest  expression  of  the 
static  drama,  when,  after  claiming  that 
Othello  does  not  have  the  august  life  of 
Hamlet,  he  writes: 

"I  have  grown  to  believe  that  an  old 
man,  seated  in  his  armchair,  waiting  pa- 
tiently, with  his  lamp  beside  him;  giving 
unconscious  ear  to  all  the  eternal  laws  that 
reign  about  his  house,  interpreting,  with- 
out comprehending,  the  silence  of  doors 
and  windows,  and  the  quivering  voice  of 
the  light,  submitting  with  bent  head  to  the 
presence  of  his  soul  and  his  destiny — an 
old  man,  who  conceives  not  that  all  the 
powers  of  this  world,  like  so  many  heed- 
ful servants,  are  mingling  and  keeping  vi- 
gil in  his  room,  who  suspects  not  that  the 
very  sun  itself  is  supporting  in  space  the 
little  table  against  which  he  leans,  or  that 
every  star  in  heaven  and  every  fibre  of  the 
soul  are  directly  concerned  in  the  move- 
ment of  an  eyelid  that  closes,  or  a  thought 
109 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

that  springs  to  birth — I  have  grown  to 
believe  that  he,  motionless  as  he  is,  does 
yet  live  in  reality  a  deeper,  more  human 
and  more  universal  life  than  the  lover 
who  strangles  his  mistress,  the  captain  who 
conquers  in  battle,  or  'the  husband  who 
avenges  his  honour.'  ' 

Maeterlinck  simply  asserted  his  belief 
in  the  truth  of  his  static  drama,  and  as  in- 
stances of  its  existence  outside  of  his  own 
marionette  plays,  he  cited  the  motionless 
tragedies  of  ^Eschylus.  His  theatre  may 
not  be  true  according  to  conventional  ideas 
of  drama,  but,  according  to  the  eternal 
verities,  it  is  true.  Modern  drama  sup- 
ports psychological  action — the  effect  of 
forces  due  to  outward  causes  on  the  in- 
ward man.  But  diminish  the  psychological 
action  even  as  you  have  the  material  ac- 
tion, and  one  deals  with  life  itself  rather 
than  with  special  moments.  The  silent 
laws  of  existence  have  yet  to  be  utilized, 
like  undertones  and  overtones  in  music, 
no 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

Maeterlinck's  ardor  blinded  him  to  the 
fact  that  the  theatre  is  not  slow  moving 
like  the  mind;  that  it  cannot  turn  back; 
that  life  must  flow  through  pictures,  since 
it  is  a  seeable  art,  not  represented  in  pig- 
ments, but  by  real  beings.  Abolish  the  ac- 
tor, and  you  no  longer  have  the  theatre 
that  has  come  down  through  the  ages,  ap- 
pealing to  crowds  rather  than  to  the 
individual.  Nevertheless,  by  his  plea 
Maeterlinck  added  something  new;  he  in- 
dicated to  the  dramatist  wherein  it  was 
his  special  province  to  be  poetic.  Maeter- 
linck's art  is  truly  like  experimental  chem- 
istry ;  his  psychology  demands  a  full  knowl- 
edge of  the  agents  and  re-agents  of  life. 

He  grants  us  this :  that  there  is  a  neces- 
sary dialogue  to  carry  the  action.  But 
the  action  grew  out  of  the  real  life  of  the 
drama,  and  "the  only  words  that  count  in 
the  play  are  those  that  at  first  seemed  use- 
less, for  it  is  therein  that  the  essence  lies." 
Maeterlinck  is  therefore  disciple  of 
in 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

Wordsworth:  "Thoughts  that  do  often 
lie  too  deep  for  tears."  There  are  mo- 
ments in  drama  when  soul  speaks  to  soul, 
when  unexpected  forces  stay  the  hand. 

This  secondary  dialogue,  which  to 
Maeterlinck  is  primary, — this  shadow  of 
speech, — is  best  seen  in  Ibsen's  "The  Mas- 
ter Builder."*  Maeterlinck  recognizes  the 
trivial  surface  of  this  play,  with  its  deeper 
current  which  is  strange  and  profound. 
Events  beyond  the  caprice  of  stage  tech- 
nique have  compelled  Ibsen  to  say  things 
other  than  the  things  he  wants,  for,  ac- 
cording to  Maeterlinck,  "Hilda  and  Sol- 
ness  are  .  .  .  the  first  characters  in 
drama  who  feel,  for  an  instant,  that  they 
are  living  in  the  atmosphere  of  the  soul." 
No  matter  what  may  be  the  ordinary 
speech  of  friends,  if  they  have  each  caught 
sight  of  the  other's  attitude  toward  uni- 
versal life,  nought  can  be  hidden  between 

*For  Maeterlinck  on  Ibsen,  see  Figaro,  1894. 
112 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

them,  however  trivial  the  spoken  word. 
The  outer  dialogue  holds  the  inner.  Thus 
it  seems  to  Maeterlinck,  concerning  Ib- 
sen's "The  Master  Builder,"  which  he  calls 
a  somnambulistic  drama.  This  is  a  diffi- 
cult technique,  and  the  obscurist  who 
makes  use  of  it  should  be  held  critically 
accountable  for  full  knowledge  of  the  life 
forces  from  whence  it  comes. 

In  "The  Treasure  of  the  Humble," 
Maeterlinck  makes  further  advance  by 
challenging  the  fatality  of  which  he  had 
once  stood  in  awe.  This,  he  says  in  "The 
Star,"  is  the  distinguishing  note  of  the  new 
theatre.  Why  should  we  deal  with  the  ef- 
fects of  disaster,  when  disaster  itself  needs 
to  be  analyzed;  since  it  affects  us  directly? 
Our  latest  tragic  actors,  he  contends,  see 
disaster  nearer  than  the  Greeks  did.  Mys- 
tery may  be  the  same,  but  we  are  more 
conscious  of  its  presence  than  they.  The 
nature  of  will  is  as  yet  not  clear  to  him, 
but  he  believes  that  often  instinct  warns 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

and  the  action  of  destiny  is  thus  averted. 
Maeterlinck's  theory  of  the  drama  is 
only  a  dramatic  treatment  of  his  philoso- 
phy; as  he  broadened  in  the  latter,  so  he 
broadened  in  the  former.  In  most  of  his 
essays  we  find  statements  regarding  his 
attitude;  everywhere  we  note  him  question- 
ing life  in  terms  of  the  awakening  soul,  and 
condemning  drama  that  ignores  such  con- 
siderations. He  is  honest  with  himself.  He 
dislikes  "Othello"  because  of  its  interest 
in  the  outcome  of  jealousy;  he  condemns 
Racine  because,  even  though  he  deals  with 
women  knowingly,  he  does  not  really  know 
women.  "Racine's  characters,"  he  says  in 
"The  Treasure  of  the  Humble"  ("The 
Awakening  of  the  Soul")  "have  no  know- 
ledge of  themselves  beyond  the  words  by 
which  they  express  themselves,  and  not  one 
of  these  words  can  pierce  the  dykes  that 
keep  back  the  sea.  .  .  .  //  they  were 
to  be  silent,  they  would  cease  to  be."  The 
italics  are  mine,  inasmuch  as  I  believe  here 
114 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

one  really  reaches  the  value  of  Maeter- 
linck's static  theory.  Life  does  not  cease 
to  be  when  silence  falls  upon  the  soul.  Even 
the  greatest  tragedies  written  for  the  stage 
do  not  satisfy  Maeterlinck's  demands; 
though  the  Greeks  claimed  that  their  he- 
roes bowed  before  fate,  Maeterlinck  be- 
lieves that  the  ancient  hero  never  attacked 
destiny;  rather  did  he  oppose  wisdom. 
"Wisdom,"  he  writes,  "has  will  power  suf- 
ficient to  rectify  all  that  does  not  deal 
death  to  the  body."  Hence,  we  rarely  see 
the  real  sage  on  the  boards,  yet  only  by 
his  presence  may  we  hope  to  have  a  drama 
of  wisdom.  Later  we  shall  see  why  it  is 
that  Maeterlinck  speaks  of  Hamlet  think- 
ing much,  but  being  by  no  means  wise. 

Ill 

"Le  Tragique  Quotidien"  at  the  same 
time  established  a  theory  of  life  and  a 
theory  of  art;  hence,  from  now  on  Maeter- 
linck was  intent  on  correlating  the  two. 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

In  fathoming  the  depths  of  justice  and 
mystery,  he  makes  constant  reference  to 
drama,  and  in  "The  Buried  Temple"  such 
a  statement  as  the  following  prepares  the 
way  for  his  next  advance  in  the  theatre: 
"Dramas  which  deal  with  unconscious 
creatures,  whom  their  own  feebleness  op- 
presses and  their  own  desires  overcome, 
excite  our  interest  and  arouse  our  pity;  but 
the  veritable  drama,  the  one  which  probes 
to  the  heart  of  things  and  grapples  with 
important  truths, — our  own  personal  dra- 
ma, in  a  word,  which  forever  hangs  over 
our  life, — is  the  one  wherein  the  strong, 
intelligent,  and  conscious  commit  errors, 
faults,  and  crimes  which  are  almost  in- 
evitable; wherein  the  wise  and  upright 
struggle  with  all-powerful  calamity,  with 
forces  destructive  to  wisdom  and  virtue." 
The  static  drama  here  takes  unto  itself 
a  new  element,  and  ceases  to  be  static. 
Whether  Maeterlinck  would  have  reached 
his  next  conclusion  without  the  aid  of 
116 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

Georgette  Leblanc  is  futile  speculation;  we 
know  for  a  fact  that  her  presence  created 
a  change  in  him.  The  consequence  is  that 
though  he  still  recognized  that  the  distin- 
guishing mark  of  modern  drama  was  "the 
creeping  paralysis  of  external  action,"  nev- 
erthelessv  he  was  now  convinced  that  ac- 
tion is  necessary.  Modern  drama  means 
an  intensifying  of  life,  a  deeper  penetra- 
tion of  human  consciousness.  There  is  a 
spiritual  courage  that  is  above  the  courage 
of  adventure,  and  this  spiritual  courage 
must  be  expressed  by  outward  activity. 
This  change  in  attitude  is  bound  to  affect 
our  whole  view  of  ancient  literature,  which 
no  longer  appeals  to  us  in  the  old  way. 
Young  people  love,  but  not  in  the  manner 
of  Romeo;  the  latter  experiences  nought 
but  a  simple  love-story,  weighted  beneath 
the  beautiful  trappings  of  romanticism.  In- 
stead of  these  exterior  decorations,  the 
modern  poet  has  new  forces  upon  which 
to  rely. 

117 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

These  views  are  set  forth  in  an  essay 
on  "The  Modern  Drama"  contained  in 
"The  Double  Garden."  The  playhouse 
of  to-day  is  stranger  to  the  ancient  meth- 
od, even  though  we  still  have  the  hidden 
protagonists — love,  hatred,  duty,  good- 
ness, pride,  and  the  rest.  The  stage  has 
been  shorn  of  the  ancient  machinery  of 
mystery,  even  though  the  unknown  still 
surrounds  us.  It  would  seem  at  first  that 
modern  drama  had  been  robbed  of  its  at- 
tractive ornament,  but  we  soon  realize  that 
psychology  and  moral  problems  take  the 
place  of  this  exterior  decoration.  But  if 
this  be  so,  we  find  Maeterlinck  keenly  con- 
scious of  the  new  demand  made  upon  the 
dramatist,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  drama 
is  so  closely  allied  to  the  philosophy  of 
life.  What  he  now  writes  should  be  placed 
in  comparison  with  his  ideas  on  the  static 
drama: 

"To  penetrate  deeply  into  human  con- 
sciousness is  the  privilege,  even  the  duty  of 
118 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

the  thinker,  the  moralist,  the  historian, 
novelist,  and  to  a  degree,  of  the  lyrical 
poet;  but  not  of  the  dramatist.  Whatever 
the  temptation,  he  dare  not  sink  into  inac- 
tivity, become  mere  philosopher  or  observ- 
er. Do  what  one  will,  discover  what  mar- 
vels one  may,  the  sovereign  law  of  the 
stage,  its  essential  demand,  will  always  be 
action," 

Maeterlinck  therefore  recognizes  a  dif- 
ference between  the  spectator  and  the 
thinker,  between  the  individual  and  the 
crowd  waiting  for  something  to  happen. 
Hence  once  more,  he  refutes  the  essen- 
tial elements  of  his  static  theatre  when  he 
adds: 

"There  are  no  words  so  profound,  so 
noble  and  admirable,  but  they  will  soon 
weary  us  if  they  leave  the  situation  un- 
changed, if  they  lead  to  no  action,  bring 
about  no  decisive  conflict,  or  hasten  no 
definite  solution." 

If  this  action  can  no  longer  be  obtained 
119 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

through  violence  of  external  scene,  then 
it  must  come  from  passion  in  conflict  with 
moral  law;  in  other  words,  most  of  our 
modern  dramatists  deal  with  the  struggle 
between  desire  and  duty.  In  crude  form, 
this  movement  began  with  Dumas,  fils,  and 
in  Dumas  fashion  dominates  the  French 
stage  to-day — problems  far  different  and 
far  less  poignant  than  those  discussed  by 
such  men  as  Bjornson,  Hauptmann,  and 
Ibsen.  The  modern  drama  demands  en- 
lightened consciousness,  yet  the  deeper  we 
penetrate,  the  less  apt  are  we  to  find 
sources  for  theatrical  struggle.  It  might 
almost  be  said,  therefore,  that  in  the  mod- 
ern playhouse  wisdom  is  to  be  avoided, 
inasmuch  as  to  wisdom  all  desire  and  all 
duty  are  clear.  From  this  moral  quiescence 
or  peace,  no  drama  may  come. 

But  inasmuch  as  Maeterlinck  is  a  dis- 
ciple of  the  theatre  and  is  also  a  disciple 
of  wisdom,  he  has  become  intent  on  find- 
ing elements  for  a  new  drama.     Admire 
1 20 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

Ibsen  though  he  may,  Maeterlinck  recog- 
nizes in  him  an  unhealthiness  outside  of 
illumined  consciousness;  he  sees  in  the  Ib- 
sen theatre  a  species  of  morbid  madness 
that  is  neither  healthy  nor  invigorating. 
Strange  that  he  who  was  himself  so  per- 
sistent an  upholder  of  gloom  should  now 
turn  against  this  gloom,  even  though  in  it 
he  saw  a  savage  beauty.  Where  he  ad- 
mires Ibsen  is  in  the  fact  that  in  him  there 
is  no  vestige  "of  the  violently  illumined 
dramas  of  antiquity  or  of  the  Renais- 
sance." 

The  theatre  of  marionettes  has  there- 
fore become  a  theatre  of  noble  action,  cre- 
ated by  man's  struggle  against  himself  and 
against  ignorance.  It  is  almost  inevitable, 
if  we  live  the  life  of  ideal  consciousness, 
that  with  the  disappearance  of  struggle 
there  will  ensue  the  drama  of  peace — what 
Maeterlinck  calls  a  theatre  "of  beauty 
without  tears."  Toward  this  consumma- 
tion we  must  all  strive,  and  therefore  our 

121 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

stage  to-day  should  deal  with  those  higher 
duties  that  lead  humanity  to  charity  and 
justice. 

Maeterlinck's  development  is  consistent, 
but  being  a  philosopher  as  well  as  a  poet, 
it  is  two-fold  and  almost  coincident.  His 
mystic  philosophy  runs  throughout  his 
plays,  and  it  is  a  question  whether  the 
dramatist  was  not  an  outcome  of  the  think- 
er. Leneveu,  in  his  treatise  on  Maeterlinck, 
discusses  his  occultism  before  analyzing 
his  dramaturgy,  but  inasmuch  as  the  Bel- 
gian first  came  into  prominence  on  the 
stage,  it  is  well  to  take  him  chronological- 
ly. And  after  all,  he  was  so  much  a  phi- 
losopher in  his  poetry  and  so  much  a  poet 
in  his  philosophy,  that  a  first  consideration 
of  either  phase  will  assuredly  throw  light 
and  understanding  on  a  later  discussion  of 
the  other. 

Maeterlinck's  philosophy  has  advanced 
from  darkness  into  light,  from  abstract- 
ness  into  scientific  analysis;  his  drama  has 
122 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

advanced  from  shadow  into  flesh  and 
blood.  In  neither  case  has  he  been  loathe 
to  change  his  mind.  It  is  not  that  he  is  too 
variable,  for  his  growth  is  not  from  ex- 
treme to  extreme.  Time  has  now  come 
for  us  to  note  Maeterlinck's  practice  in  the 
several  phases  of  his  development  as  a 
dramatist.  Hence,  we  go  back  once  more, 
and  begin  where,  as  Leneveu  says,  "by 
touches  of  light  and  shade,  he  projects  his 
characters,  and  his  vision  penetrates  them 
like  Roentgen  rays." 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  MARIONETTE  DRAMAS 

"//  is  only  after  hinting  at  many  of  the 
things  which  he  had  to  say  in  these  plays, 
which  have,  after  all,  been  a  kind  of 
subterfuge,  that  Maeterlinck  has  cared,  or 
been  able  to  speak  with  the  direct  utter- 
ance of  the  essays.  And  what  may  seem 
curious  is  that  this  prose  of  the  essays, 
which  is  the  prose  of  a  doctrine,  is  incom- 
parably more  beautiful  than  the  prose  of 
the  plays,  which  was  the  prose  of  an  art. 
— Arthur  Symons. 

I 

THE   understanding  of  Maeterlinck's 
small  plays  presents  a  double  prob- 
lem.    Coming  upon  them  with  no  knowl- 
edge of  the  character  of  their  substance, 
they  seem  strangely  morbid,  unnecessarily 
humid,  provokingly  shadowy.    They  speak 
of  unfamiliar  powers  about  which  we  know 
nothing,  they  regard  unreality  with  a  per- 
sistency that  is  disconcerting,  they  offer  a 
125 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

rarefied  ether  that  is  almost  stifling.  In  all 
of  this  maze  of  Rossetti  poses,  there  lurks 
the  personality  of  Maurice  Maeterlinck 
himself.  By  the  time  one  has  become  ac- 
customed to  his  disconnected  dialogue,  and 
has  reached  the  conclusion  that  he  has 
been  given  drama  dealing  with  intangible 
forces,  one  is  then  led  to  see  that  the  rudi- 
mentary philosophy  which,  in  the  dramas, 
Maeterlinck  turns  into  mystic  atmosphere, 
is  personal  conviction  rather  than  dramatic 
effect.  The  consequence  is  that  should  the 
reader  advance  from  reading  the  mario- 
nette plays  to  reading  "Le  Tresor  des 
Humble,"  he  would  recognize  Maeter- 
linck as  advancing  from  behind  the  cloak 
of  a  poet  to  the  open  position  of  a  philoso- 
pher. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  should  one  come 
upon  the  little  plays  after  having  scaled 
the  heights  of  idealism  outlined  in  Mae- 
terlinck's essays,  these  shadowy  composi- 
tions would  appear  nothing  more  nor  less 
126 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

than  compounded  of  stray  chips  of  a  phi- 
losophy, later  expressed  in  more  definite 
terms.  As  a  dramatist,  he  was  a  man 
without  a  system,  but  as  a  philosopher,  he 
bound  the  separate  strands  of  belief  into 
pronounced  declarations,  into  well-defined 
attitudes. 

His  early  plays  deal  with  death;  what  is 
more,  they  depict  mere  children  wandering 
in  a  vale  of  tears.  Maeterlinck  is  no  real- 
ist, and  neither  the  psychology  of  his  char- 
acters nor  the  accessories  of  his  scenes 
would  prompt  one  to  call  him  optimistic. 
His  dialogue  has  a  dual  power,  as  Segur 
has  pointed  out,  of  contrasting  the  appar- 
ent calm  of  the  action  with  the  tempest  of 
destiny  which  is  imminent.  The  least 
that  could  be  said  of  them  is  that  they  con- 
tain no  ray  of  brightness;  the  most  that 
they  are  perfect  examples  of  tragedy  in  es- 
sence. Maeterlinck  is  a  symbolist,  a  philos- 
opher meditating,  an  artist  with  eyes  for 
the  incongruous.  Octave  Mirbeau  was  un- 
127 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

wise  in  hailing  the  Belgian  poet  as  a  veri- 
table Belgian  Shakespeare.  For  only  a 
casual  contrast  of  the  two  would  empha- 
size the  humanity  of  the  one  and  the  total 
unreality  of  the  other.  Shakespeare  dealt 
with  human  life  in  its  varied  human  as- 
pects; Maeterlinck  assumes  that  life  is  gov- 
erned by  what  a  writer  has  termed  vast  im- 
personal factors. 

These  marionette  plays  deal  with  love, 
fear,  and  jealousy  as  the  true  active 
agents  of  the  plot.  Maeterlinck  shows 
very  well,  through  the  mere  facility  of  his 
dialogue,  that  souls  may  move  unseen,  yet 
be  powerful  protagonists.  There  are  some 
who  are  prone  to  accuse  Maeterlinck  of 
agnosticism;  his  later  writings  fairly  well 
refute  that  statement,  however  much  mere 
form  may  have  made  him  cautious  in  the 
expression  of  his  belief.  The  ether  in 
which  his  characters  move  is  one  of  great 
mystery — and  the  greater  this  mystery  be- 
comes, the  more  futile  seems  human  life  to 
128 


Maurice  MaeterlincK 

cope  with  it.  That  is  why  his  marionette 
people  seem  so  small,  so  thin,  so  fragile. 
Theirs  is  the  tragedy  of  a  prescience 
stronger  than  their  feeble  minds  can  stand. 
These  faint  flowers  cannot  abide  over- 
interpretation;  they  are  much  more  readily 
felt  than  explained.  Maeterlinck  wilfully 
places  thought  in  shadow,  and  one  only 
half  grasps  in  accepting  the  whole.  The 
marionette  plays  cannot  stand  over-analy- 
sis, for  their  structure  is  web-like,  and  life 
pulses  faintly  through  fine  tissue.  Gran- 
ville  Barker,  when  he  wrote  of  this  series 
of  dramas,  declared  his  dislike  of  "point- 
ing out  beauties,"  and  I  agree  with  him 
where  there  is  so  little  substance  to  grasp. 
But  I  cannot  agree  with  him  in  the  belief 
that  Maeterlinck's  marionette  dramas  are 
deprived  of  existence  on  the  boards  simply 
because  there  is  no  medium  now  used  fit  to 
grace  their  delicacy.  Mr.  Barker*  would 

*See  Gowans's  Copyright  Series,  No.  2,  "Three 
Plays  by  Maeterlinck" ;  Introduction  by  H.  Gran- 
ville  Barker.  Stokes,  191 1;  London:  Gowans  & 

129 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

blame  the  theatre,  believing  that  these 
plays  constitute  real  art.  But  while  in 
their  clairvoyance  they  carry  effect,  they 
are  more  for  the  mind  than  for  the  eye. 
Maeterlinck's  scenes  are  pictures,  and  there 
is  not  enough  variety  of  pantomime  to  tell 
the  story.  They  are  dramas  of  few  moods 
—and  these  moods  always  in  the  negative 
key.  There  is  no  relief  of  vision,  though 
there  are  changing  shades  of  wisdom,  of 
attitude,  and  of  acceptances. 

One  would  not  desecrate  the  frail  phan- 
toms by  describing  them  in  detail.  They 
represent,  in  their  presence,  a  mediaeval 
color,  but  they  personify,  in  their  mystic 
touches,  fundamental  elements  in  life. 
They  are  submissive — otherwise  Maeter- 
linck's theatre  would  not  be  static — and  all 

Gray,  1911.  "Alladine  and  Palomides,"  "Interior," 
and  "The  Death  of  Tintagiles"  were  published  in 
1894  under  the  title,  "Three  Little  Dramas  for  Mar- 
ionettes." The  first  was  issued  by  Duckworth  & 
Co.,  in  i8qQ;  "Interior"  first  appeared  in  London 
in  The  New  Reznew,  1894;  and  "Tintagiles"  in  The 
Pageant,  1896.  [See  also  Gowan's  International 
Library,  Nos.  n,  20,  26,  and  28.] 

130 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

critics  agree  that  they  "minimise  human 
responsibility."  But  though  in  "Wisdom 
and  Destiny" — which  is  an  excellent  text- 
book on  Maeterlinck — there  is  a  state- 
ment disproving  an  inner  fatality,  to  the 
effect  that  "Wisdom  has  will  power  suf- 
ficient to  rectify  all  that  does  not  deal 
death  to  the  body,"  this  will  power  never 
finds  expression  in  the  marionette  dramas. 
One  could  never  unfold  adequately  or  the- 
atrically the  peace  of  full  enlightenment, 
yet  Maeterlinck  would  probably  explain 
his  mysticism,  whether  in  prose  or  in 
verse,  by  looking  for  the  higher  truth.  He 
has  claimed  that  there  is  no  drama  extant 
wherein  the  sage  finds  a  place.  Hamlet 
thinks,  but  he  is  in  no  way  wise;  his  soul 
is  not  lofty  like  that  of  Marcus  Aurelius, 
nor  has  he  the  abiding  wisdom  of  Christ. 
We  might  take  such  opinions  as  these  in 
"Wisdom  and  Destiny"  and  apply  them  to 
the  marionette  plays,  wherein  souls,  not  in 
possession  of  consciousness,  are  not  mas- 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

ters  of  their  fate,  because  they  are  not 
masters  of  themselves.  To  reduce  them 
to  mere  stories  would  change  their  quality. 
They  are  dependent  upon  atmosphere; 
that  is  why  Mrs.  Patrick  Campbell  acted 
"Pelleas  et  Melisande"  behind  gauze, 
making  literal  what  was  never  intended  to 
be  anything  more  than  spiritual. 

I  would  not  go  as  far  as  Mr.  Barker  in 
claiming  that  these  plays  transcend  thea- 
tre technique;  rather  is  it  true  that  as  much 
as  possible  they  ignore  theatre  technique. 
In  the  French  they  are  musical,  yet  Mae- 
terlinck is  the  most  unmusical  of  men,  leav- 
ing to  his  wife  the  details  relating  to  those 
dramas  of  his  which  are  used  as  librettos. 
Approaching  his  theatre,  after  reading  his 
essays,  however,  I  should  consider  his 
marionette  plays  as  measure  of  his  philo- 
sophical incompleteness  at  the  time  they 
were  written.  There  is  no  thought  in  them 
that  is  not  carried  further,  and  that  has 
not  fuller  and  saner  expression  in  the  es- 
132 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

says.     Yet  the  quality  and  texture  of  the 
plays  are  not  to  be  denied. 


II 


I  like  to  think  of  Maeterlinck  using  a 
handpress  in  order  to  print  twenty  copies 
of  "La  Princesse  Maleine";*  the  idea 
lends  a  mediaeval  touch  to  this,  his  first  ap- 
pearance in  drama.  And  as  we  are  all 
human,  the  young  poet  may  be  forgiven 
the  pride  with  which  he  forwarded  the  re- 
sults to  members  of  the  French  Academy. 

*"La  Princesse  Maleine"  was  published,  Gand: 
Louis  Van  Melle,  1889.  See  Octave  Mirbeau,  Paris 
Figaro,  August  24,  1890;  also  Iwan  Gilkin  in  Jeune 
Belgique.  Cf.  Poe's  "The  Fall  of  the  House  of 
Usher,"  "Ulalume,"  and  "The  Haunted  Palace."  See 
Hall  Caine's  introduction,  in  an  ed.  of  the  play, 
translated  by  William  Wilson,  1892.  There  is  an  edi- 
tion of  "La  Princesse  Maleine"  translated  by  Gerard 
Harry  and  included  with  "L'Intruse,"  translated  by 
William  Wilson,  in  a  volume  to  which  there  is  an 
introduction  by  Hall  Caine  (Heinemann,  1892).  For 
reviews,  see  Critic,  June  22,  1895,  451-53  (I.  Zang- 
will)  ;  Academy,  March  19,  1892,  41 :  270-72  (William 
Sharp),  and  Fortn.,  Sept.,  1891,  56:  346-54  (William 
Archer). 

133 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

With  the  sheets  still  damp,  no  doubt,  he 
hastened  the  first  copy  to  Mallarme.  But 
it  was  not  until  August  24,  1890,  the  day 
when  the  Figaro  appeared,  that  Maurice 
Maeterlinck  was  officially  hailed.  Then  it 
was  that  Octave  Mirbeau  wrote  his  oft- 
quoted  opinion. 

"I  know  nothing  of  M.  Maurice  Mae- 
terlinck," he  said;  "I  do  not  know  who  he 
is,  or  what  he  is, — whether  he  is  old  or 
young,  rich  or  poor.  I  only  know  that  no 
one  is  more  unknown  than  he,  and  I  know 
also  that  he  has  written  a  masterpiece.* 
He  has  given  us  the  most  bril- 
liant work  of  this  period,  and  the  most  ex- 

*The  omitted  passage  runs :  "non  pas  un  chef- 
d'oeuvre  etiquete  chef-d'oeuvre  a  1'avance,  comme  en 
publient  tous  les  jours  nos  jeunes  maitres,  chantes 
sur  tous  les  tous  de  la  glapissante  lyre — ou  plutot 
de  la  glapissante  flute  contemporaine ;  mais  un  ad- 
mirable et  pur  eternal  chef-d'oeuvre,  un  chef-d'oeuvre 
qui  suffit  a  immortaliser  un  nom  et  a  faire  benir 
ce  nom  par  tous  les  affames  du  beau  et  du  grand ; 
un  chef-d'oeuvre  comme  les  artistes  honnetes  et  tour- 
mentes,  parfois,  aux  heures  d'enthousiasme,  ont  reve 
d'en  ecrire  un  et  comme  Us  n'en  ont  ecrit  aucun 
jusqu'ici." 

134 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

traordinary  and  naive  also,  comparable — 
dare  I  say  it? — superior  in  beauty  to  the 
most  beautiful  in  Shakespeare." 

Had  Maeterlinck  been  other  than  him- 
self and  had  he  been  other  than  Flemish, 
he  might  have  been  disconcerted  by  such 
fulsome  praise,  but  his  friends  marked  that 
he  did  not  step  from  his  reserve  at  all. 
Probably  he  realized  that  "La  Princesse 
Maleine"  was  a  decided  advance  over 
"Serres  Chaudes."  He  had  set  out  to  il- 
lustrate a  theory  of  playwriting,  and  he 
had  very  well  succeeded.  But  all  the  more 
he  drew  within  himself,  to  follow  more 
fully  the  ideas  and  the  technique  which 
mark  him  as  so  original.  These  fragments 
of  spiritual  incompleteness  could  scarcely 
abide  an  actor,  yet,  however  affected  they 
may  seem,  after  one  has  become  accus- 
tomed to  Maeterlinck's  mannerism,  they 
nevertheless  strike  one  as  being  sincere. 

"La  Princesse  Maleine"  contains  a  for- 
mal beauty,  and  an  interior  atmosphere 
135 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

which  words  create  without  expressing  full 
coherence.  Maeterlinck's  love  of  terror 
is  not  final  with  him;  it  is  simply  the  com- 
mon terror  which  surrounds  all  those  who 
have  not  attained  complete  wisdom.  If 
death  overtakes  life  and  conquers,  it  is 
only  a  way  Maeterlinck  has  of  showing 
how  much  we  are  playthings  in  the  hands 
of  external  events.  Starting  with  Maleine, 
we  shall  have  a  long  coterie  of  women 
upon  whom  Maeterlinck  has  lavished  his 
profoundest  thoughts.  Through  them,  he 
has  become  distinctively  the  poet  of  femin- 
ism. It  is  never  quite  clear  why  Maeter- 
linck wished  to  build  his  art  upon  despair, 
but  it  is  understandable  why  he  wished  to 
illustrate  a  theory  of  art.* 

*In  tracing  Maeterlinck's  friendships,  as  I  have 
attempted  to  do  on  p.  13,  Appendix  B,  it 
were  well  to  record  his  dedications  to  the  mario- 
nette plays :  "L'Intruse"  was  addressed  to  Edmond 
Picard;  "Les  Aveugles"  to  Charles  Van  Lerberghe; 
"Alladine  et  Palomides"  to  Camille  Mauclair;  "Pel- 
leas  et  Melisande"  to  Octave  Mirbeau ;  "L'Interieur" 
to  Mme.  Sara  de  Swart;  and  "La  Mort  de  Tinta- 
giles"  to  A.  F.  Lugne-Poe. 

136 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

The  actors  were  puzzled  when  they  came 
to  study  their  parts  in  the  marionette  plays, 
— there  was  so  much  to  think  over,  so 
little  to  do.  For  the  frame-work  of  all  the 
dramas  is  so  simple,  while  the  main  theme 
might  be  stated  in  a  few  words.  It  is  when 
Maeterlinck,  through  his  character,  ques- 
tions destiny,  when  he  himself  is  in  a  quan- 
dary about  life,  that  the  mind  must  pause 
to  argue  out  a  philosophical  distinction. 
Nearly  all  of  "Home"  gains  effect  through 
the  sure  and  steady  flow  of  outward  events, 
and  through  the  powerlessness  of  circum- 
stances to  check  them. 

Wherever  Maeterlinck  becomes  con- 
scious of  situation  in  "La  Princesse  Ma- 
leine,"  he  shows  reminiscent  touches  of 
Shakespeare,  as  in  the  opening  scene  which 
is  a  veritable  reproduction  of  the  Elsinore 
platform  scene  in  "Hamlet."  It  is  a 
strange  mixture,  this,  of  things  we  have 
read  elsewhere ;  it  is  not  original  in  any  of 
the  points  by  which  we  usually  measure 
137 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

original  standards  in  literature.  In 
phrases,  one  can  detect  a  fondness  for 
Browning,  a  taste  later  to  be  prominently 
illustrated  in  "Mpnna  Vanna."  "Hamlet," 
"Macbeth,"  and  "Romeo  and  Juliet"  have 
been  generously  drawn  upon.  What  is 
more,  in  "La  Princesse  Maleine"  there  are 
incipient  evidences  of  his  other  plays;  thus 
early,  one  glimpses  "Pelleas  et  Melisande," 
and  from  such  a  thought  as  "evils  are 
not  asleep"  may  have  been  born  a  scene 
for  "L'Oiseau  Bleu." 

But,  taking  these  imitative  touches  for 
granted;  considering  also  that  "La  Prin- 
cesse Maleine,"  sickled  over  with  the  pale 
caste  of  thought,  gives  forth  vapours  akin 
to  Poe, — the  originality  of  the  piece  lies 
in  its  power  to  create,  through  restless 
simplicity  and  simpleness,  the  impression 
of  states  of  soul  through  which  his  char- 
acters pass.  First  of  all,  by  this  play,  Mae- 
terlinck established  something  more  than 
impressionism,  something  profounder  than 
138 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

feeling.  Through  suggestion,  he  worked 
powerfully  upon  the  imagination  of  the 
reader,  making  use  of  mannerism  of 
speech  and  mechanism  of  outward  detail 
to  gain  his  effect. 

The  play  loses  much  in  its  length,  in  its 
fragmentary  scenes,  in  its  monotones.  The 
constructive  arrangement  of  "Alladine  et 
Palomides"  is  less  complicated.  Amidst 
a  mass  of  useless  details  and  repetitions, 
we  obtain,  however,  a  persistent  tragedy 
that  moves  inevitably  to  its  end.  Here 
are  two  kings  and  a  vindictive,  deposed 
queen  on  one  hand,  with  two  princesses 
and  a  prince  on  the  other.  The  two  kings 
quarrel,  and  one,  the  father  of  Maleine,  is 
killed  in  battle ;  in  fact,  the  whole  of  Mar- 
cellus's  land  is  laid  waste,  and  Maleine, 
once  the  betrothed  of  Prince  Hjalmar,  is 
made  an  orphan,  and  is  sent  on  the  high- 
way of  life  to  seek  her  haven.  But  Queen 
Anne,  always  a  schemer,  contrives  a  match 
between  Prince  Hjalmar  and  her  daugh- 
139 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

ter,  Uglyane  (a  most  suggestive  name), 
while  she  practices  wiles  upon  the  Prince's 
father.  Into  such  an  atmosphere  wanders 
Maleine,  who  becomes  a  maid-servant  to 
Uglyane.  But  when  the  Prince  is  seen  of 
her,  simple  as  she  is,  she  makes  herself 
known,  and  the  old  fire  of  Hjalmar's  love 
returns. 

What  then,  is  the  main  story  of  "La 
Princesse  Maleine"?  One  which  deals  with 
Queen  Anne's  steady  revenge,  her  attempts 
to  poison  the  girl,  her  final  success  in 
strangling  her.  She  is  much  the  type  of 
the  Queen-mother  to  Hamlet,  while  in  Ma- 
leine there  is  kinship  to  Ophelia.  When, 
finally,  Maleine  is  discovered,  stark  and 
cold  in  her  room,  with  the  noose  around 
her  neck,  then  we  have  the  Shakespearean 
dissolution.  Hjalmar  stabs  Queen  Anne, 
instantly  turning  the  dagger  upon  himself, 
while  the  King,  now  worn  with  age,  chat- 
ters incoherently,  having  lost  courage  in 
doing  the  direful  deed,  and  passing  from 
140 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

the  terror  of  Macbeth  into  the  distraught- 
ness  of  Lear.  Maeterlinck  has  even 
adopted  the  Shakespearean  point  of  rest, 
commented  upon  by  Coventry  Patmore  in 
an  analysis  of  "Hamlet."  Hjalmar's 
friend,  Angus,  is  the  one  sane  character  of 
the  drama. 

There  is  nothing  particularly  original  in 
this  outline,  but  the  manner  of  treatment 
is  the  thing  that  is  unusual.  The  dia- 
logue is  saturated  with  nervous  tension, 
and  with  seemingly  affected  repetitions. 
Something  awful  is  imminent,  whatever  the 
scene.  Strange  comets  dart  across  dark- 
ened skies,  eclipses  portend  disaster,  char- 
acters move  in  stagnant  atmosphere,  and 
seem  to  sicken  through  lack  of  red  blood 
and  healthy  outlook.  In  the  midst  of  these 
details  come  beautiful  thoughts,  lyrical 
in  expression,  as  when  Hjalmar  speaks  of 
his  memory  of  Malelne :  "It  was  as  though 
one  were  suddenly  in  a  great  pool  of  fresh 
water." 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

Maeterlinck's  nervous  tension  is  cumu- 
lative; it  never  abates,  it  never  balances 
with  relief.  Situation  after  situation  in 
"La  Princesse  Maleine"  is  simply  intro- 
duced for  momentary  effect,  as  the  motive 
of  the  madman — trite  and  weird  at  the 
moment,  but  significant  when  Maleine  is 
dead  and  courtiers  suspect  him  of  the  deed. 
This  transference  of  suspicion,  even  for 
an  instant,  makes  more  poignant  the  King's 
after  confession. 

Maleine  is  an  eery  princess;  one  hardly 
knows  from  whence  she  came.  She  is  pale, 
with  no  will  in  her,  save  during  that  in- 
stant when  she  keeps  Ualyane  from  tryst- 
ing  with  Hjalmar,  and  goes  herself.  She 
is  paler  than  Melisande,  but  nevertheless 
related  to  her.  This  much  is  evident 
when  the  text  of  the  drama  is  examined 
carefully:  in  "La  Princesse  Maleine"  are 
to  be  found  all  the  conventions  of  the 
Maeterlinckean  drama,  with  some  of  the 
crude  morbidity  of  "Serres  Chaudes." 
142 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

The  Seven  Nuns  become  later  "The  Seven 
Princesses,"  with  much  the  same  deco- 
rative object,  and  appear  again  in  the  Seven 
Sisters  of  Palomides.  The  detail  is  not  as 
simple  as  in  "LTntruse,"  or  "L'Interieur," 
but  it  is  just  as  inconsequential.  To  indi- 
cate the  feeling  of  terror  in  his  charac- 
ters, Maeterlinck's  observation  wanders 
among  objects  that  will  produce  the  effect. 
He  accomplishes  this  result  with  a  nicety 
that  no  other  modern  dramatist  possesses. 
Cypresses  wave  strangely  in  the  dark, 
making  almost  human  gestures  against 
significant  skies;  fountains  spout  at  critical 
moments,  and  leave  off  playing  when  least 
expected.  Strange  knocks,  as  theatrical  as 
Hilda's  knocking  in  "The  Master 
Builder,"  result  in  shudders,  but  in  no 
outcome. 

These  unnecessary  and  widely  separate 
interests  usually  afford  a  minimum  of  aid 
to  the  plot,  but  they  further  the  psycho- 
logical impression  of  inevitable  catastro- 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

phe.  Maleine's  terror  alone  in  her  room 
with  Pluto,  the  dog,  is  a  minute  unfolding 
of  everyone's  terror  while  conjuring  up 
grotesqueness  in  the  dark.  Maeterlinck 
summons  to  his  assistance  every  disaster 
of  Nature  that  he  can  conceive,  and  his 
method  is  the  same  from  "La  Princesse 
Maleine"  to  "Monna  Vanna."  As  Hune- 
ker  says,  the  lines  bite  at  times,  and  "there 
are  great  fissures  of  silence." 

Thus  early  we  hear  Maeterlinck  on 
love.  When  Maleine  meets  Hjalmar  in 
the  place  of  Uglyane,  the  two  are  only 
made  aware  of  possible  disaster.  They 
do  not  burn  with  any  of  the  fire  of  Joy- 
zelle;  their  feeling  has  none  of  the  flame 
of  passion.  They  are  more  or  less  slaves 
to  the  fleeting  moment;  they  are  more  or 
less  spectral. 

In  W.  L.  Courtney's  "The  Idea  of 
Tragedy,"  there  occurs  this  significant  pas- 
sage: "In  Maeterlinck  .  .  .  you 
find  the  conclusion  that  man  is  the  play- 
144 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

thing,  the  sport  of  destiny.  At  all  events 
this  is  true  of  Maeterlinck's  earlier  dra- 
mas, where  the  human  figure  is  so  faintly 
drawn  that  the  notion  of  spontaneity  or 
freedom  is  absurd.  ...  If  you  re- 
duce human  vitality  to  a  thin,  almost  incor- 
poreal vapour;  if,  instead  of  human  beings 
that  have  length,  breadth  and  thickness, 
you  have  frescoes  on  a  wall,  it  is  absurd  to 
ask  if  things  like  these  can  alter  their  fates, 
or  recognize  that  the  supreme  fate  lies  in 
their  character."  It  is  this  sense  of  vital- 
ity which  separates  Ibsen  and  Maeter- 
linck. 

Now,  in  Maeterlinck's  dramas  there  is 
either  the  restlessness  of  old  age  as  a  requi- 
site, or  the  wisdom  of  old  age  as  a  con- 
trast. It  is  as  necessary  to  the  canvas  that 
there  be  grey  hair  and  a  white  flowing 
beard,  as  that  mystic  numerical  groups  act 
in  unison.  In  "La  Princesse  Maleine,"  old 
King  Hjalmar  loses  whatever  vitality  he 
may  possess  in  the  terror  which  seizes  his 
145 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

soul.  In  "L'Intruse"  (1890),*  Maeter- 
linck devotes  himself  to  a  study  of  the 
restlessness  of  old  age,  and  adds  thereto, 
a  preliminary  sketch  of  blindness,  later  to 
be  used  in  "Les  Aveugles"  with  such  clini- 
cal exactness.  There  are  two  canvases 
which  should  be  placed  side  by  side — 
the  interior  study  of  "L'Intruse"  with  the 
exterior  picture  of  "L'Interieur."  One  is 
from  the  inside  out,  the  other  from  the 
outside  in,  and  the  effects  are  gained  in  the 
same  manner,  though  "L'Intruse"  exter- 
nalizes the  unseeable,  while  "L'Interieur" 
spiritualizes  that  which  is  seen. 

As  we  have  said,  the  reason  why  Mae- 
terlinck's "L'Intruse"  has  been  so  persist- 

*"L'Intruse"  was  first  published  in  1890 :  Bruxelles, 
Louis  van  Melle.  It  was  used  before  this  in  La 
Wallonie,  in  which,  also,  Van  Lerberghe's  "Les 
Flaireurs"  appeared.  It  was  played  at  the  Theatre 
d'Art  on  May  21,  1891,  for  the  benefit  of  Paul  Ver- 
laine  and  Gauguin,  the  painter.  Among  the  actors 
was  Lugne-Poe.  Consult  Archer:  Fortn.  Rev.,  56: 
346-54,  Sept.,  1891.  In  America,  the  play  was  given 
by  the  students  of  Franklin  Sargent's  Academy  of 
Dramatic  Art,  at  the  Berkeley  Lyceum,  New  York, 
Feb.  21,  1893,  and  Jan.  18,  1894. 

146 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

ently  connected  with  Charles  Van  Ler- 
berghe's  legend,  "Les  Flaireurs,"  is  be- 
cause of  their  mutual  insistence  upon  the 
irresistible  power  of  death.  But,  whereas 
Van  Lerberghe  possessed  a  fear  of  mys- 
tery, Maeterlinck  was  quite  resigned  to 
fatality,  even  though  his  characters  were 
restive  at  its  approach.  In  fact,  through 
his  calmness  Maeterlinck,  the  artist,  was 
able  to  double  on  the  emotional  value  of 
his  dramas.  In  "L'Intruse,"  there  is  not 
only  the  terror  of  approaching  death,  ex- 
perienced by  those  seated  in  a  room,  but 
there  is  likewise  created  a  terror  which  is 
purely  the  result  of  the  terror  of  others. 
What  is  more,  in  order  to  emphasize  the 
power  of  these  impersonal  forces,  which 
we  call  life  or  death  or  love  or  jealousy, 
he  places  in  the  centre  of  the  whirling  vor- 
tex, timid,  gentle,  faintly  lined  figures,  to- 
tally incapable  of  meeting  crises. 

In  the  midst  of  a  silence  that  vibrates 
with  anxiety  and  dread,  a  family  of  six 
147 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

await  news  from  a  sick  room  adjoining. 
Therein  lies  a  mother,  who  has  given  birth 
to  a  waxen  baby,  and  who  struggles  in  pain 
against  the  approach  of  death.  The  old 
grandfather,  blind  and  nervously  senile, 
is  the  agitator  of  the  little  drama.  Though 
he  cannot  see,  he  may  feel,  and  by  that 
feeling  he  may  predict.  Through  forty- 
five  pages  of  quick  dialogue,  the  reader  is 
carried  into  the  very  throes  of  agony  and 
suspense.  The  flicker  of  a  lamp,  the 
shadow  of  a  leaf,  the  significance  of  a 
whisper,  the  wail  of  a  bird, — all  combine 
to  show  that  something  is  in  the  air,  be- 
yond the  ken  of  this  group,  and  outside 
the  power  of  their  control.  The  grand- 
father works  them  up  to  a  tension;  he  sus- 
pects that  something  is  wrong  in  the  sick- 
room, and  though  ostensibly  they  are 
waiting  for  the  arrival  of  a  Mother  Supe- 
rior who  is  a  relative  of  the  sick  woman,  we 
know  they  await  the  approach  of  death. 
These  throbs  of  terror  beat  with  regu- 
148 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

larity  throughout  the  text.  Maeterlinck's 
dialogue  has  relative  values,  as  an  orches- 
tra has  values  measured  by  the  different 
qualities  of  musical  instruments.  Small 
points  are  barely  touched  upon,  yet  in  the 
mention  of  swans  frightened  by  nothing, 
of  dogs  that  fail  to  bark  when  they  should, 
of  silences  that  in  the  common  course  of 
things  should  be  full  of  sound,  and  of 
doors  that  are  opened  by  no  one — by  the 
mention  of  these  things,  Maeterlinck 
creates  such  suggestion  that  the  mind  sees 
no  limits  to  which  it  would  not  go. 

The  grandfather  may  be  old, — and  "age 
has  a  right  to  be  strange" — but  his  anxiety 
succeeds  in  making  the  others  near  him 
fear  that  something  is  wrong.  We  are 
thoroughly  impressed  with  the  feeling  of 
powerlessness  which  exists  in  the  grand- 
father. "L'Intruse"  is  a  modern  play,  but 
all  vestige  of  outward  familiarity  is  lost  in 
the  spiritual  restlessness  of  the  characters. 
They  expect  something,  and  in  his  blind- 
149 


Maurice  Maeterlinclc 

ness  the  old  man  suspicions  everything. 
To  him,  voices  sound  strange,  and  this 
strangeness  is  interpreted  as  something  im- 
minent; he  hears  people  entering  the  room, 
yet  no  one  comes.  He  is  pitifully  alone, 
for  the  others  see,  and  he  feels  that  they 
are  deceiving  him.  Every  now  and  then 
there  are  little  practical,  every-day  utter- 
ances, but  these  only  serve  to  accentuate 
how  immense  the  unseen  force  which  slow- 
ly creeps  to  the  sick-room.  Then  comes 
midnight,  with  the  moon,  and  a  faint  rising 
of  someone.  There  follows  a  wail  from  the 
waxen  child  who  has  never  cried  before, 
and  the  faltering  of  this  group,  as  a  Sister 
of  Charity,  amidst  terrible  silence,  announ- 
ces that  the  mother  is  dead.  They  all  has- 
ten from  the  room,  leaving  the  grandfather. 
This  is  the  story  of  "L'Intruse,"  shorn 
of  its  Maeterlinckean  excellence.  There  is 
no  more  symbolism  here  than  one  finds  in 
any  utterance.  It  is  simple  and  futile, 
representing  a  philosophy  which  Maeter- 
150 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

linck  was  later  to  refute.  The  end  of  life 
is  not  annihilation,  even  though  the  mar- 
ionette dramas  would  prove  to  the  con- 
trary. But  in  this  piece  Maeterlinck  went 
beyond  the  Greeks  in  his  power  of  up- 
holding a  Greek  convention, — so  manoeu- 
vering  as  to  make  the  presence  of  death  evi- 
dent throughout  the  scene.  Had  anyone 
before  Maeterlinck  succeeded  so  well  in 
handling  these  intangible  forces?  I  think 
not,  and  it  is  because  of  this  excellence  in 
him — this  opening  a  world  of  spiritual 
presence  to  the  dramatist,  through  actual 
technique  as  well  as  through  philosophy, 
that  I  would  consider  him  such  a  force  in 
modern  drama. 

There  is  quality  to  Maeterlinck's 
feeling,  even  as  there  is  quality  to  the 
touch  of  a  blind  man;  there  are  degrees  of 
sightlessness,  as  there  are  different  inten- 
sities of  light.  Where  "Les  Aveugles"*  is 

*"Les  Aveugles"  (1890)  was  first  performed  by 
Lugne-Poe  and  his  company  at  the  Theatre  d'Art 
on  Dec.  7,  1891.  It  was  presented  at  the  Berkeley 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

distinctive  is  in  this  very  power  of  measur- 
ing quality,  of  making  us  understand  that 
even  in  an  asylum,  the  blind  man  who  can 
distinguish  light  from  shadow  is  infinitely 
more  fortunate  than  he  who  cannot.  But 
there  is  also  a  definite  symbol  in  this  ele- 
mentary tale.  The  manner  of  restlessness 
is  the  same  as  in  "L'Intruse,"  the  sickly 
character  of  the  scene  akin  to  that  of  "La 
Princesse  Maleine."  Like  them  also,  the 
action  here  could  not  well  dispense  with 
the  dialogue,  whereas  the  action  is  not 
necessary  to  the  understanding  of  the  dia- 
logue. The  outward  movement  is  almost 
static,  and  the  sense  impressions  of  the 
reader  alone  progress.  To  externalize  this 
play,  to  reproduce  it  on  the  stage,  would 
be  futile,  inasmuch  as  it  is  statuesque. 

Lyceum,  New  York,  on  Feb.  21,  1893,  and  Jan.  18, 
1894.  Some  critics  would  contrast  this  with  Breughel 
le  Vieux's  "Parabole  des  Aveugles."  It  is  to  be 
noted  here  that  after  this,  the  next  piece  of  work 
undertaken  by  Maeterlinck  was  the  translation  of 
Ruysbroeck 

152 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

The  dramatis  persona  are  six  blind  men 
of  varying  ages  and  of  varying  degrees  of 
blindness.*  These  are  seated  to  the  right 
of  an  old  priest,  who  has  to  his  left  six 
women  in  similar  plight  as  the  men.  The 
priest  is  dead  in  their  midst,  though  these 
afflicted  people  know  it  not,  and  believe  that 
he  has  gone  from  them  only  to  return.  The 
psychological  motive  of  the  dramatic  frag- 
ment, therefore,  deals  with  the  restless- 
ness of  these  helpless  mortals,  as  their  fear 
increases.  They  have  been  led  away  from 
their  asylum,  and  there  is  no  one  to  lead 
them  back.  But  soon  they  discover  the 
dead  man  in  their  midst,  a  dog  having 
given  them  the  first  clue.  This  dog,  and 
the  infant  child  of  one  of  the  blind  women 
who  is  mad,  are  the  only  ones  who  have 
sight,  and  they  are  most  unable  to  lead 
these  folk  back  to  harbor. 

From    this,    the    symbolism    is    easily 

*Sculptor  L.  Taft  has  based  a  marble  group  upon 
this  conception  of  Maeterlinck.  See  Chautauquan, 
54 :442-47- 

153 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

stated.  For  the  church  is  often  a  dead 
thing  among  men  too  blind  to  recognize 
it  as  dead  and  not  caring  much  about  the 
way  one  treads  alone,  one  gropes  in  dark- 
ness, hoping  against  hope  to  find  some  day 
a  haven  of  rest.  Wonderful  as  it  is  in  its 
effect,  "Les  Aveugles"  is  artificial  in  its 
arrangement.  The  details  are  so  closely 
identified  with  Maeterlinck  that  his  static 
scene  almost  falls  into  the  sphere  of  math- 
ematical arrangement. 

Gruesomeness  being  the  atmosphere  of 
prime  consideration,  the  poet  wanders  to 
any  lengths  for  a  shudder,  and  he  wanders 
many  times  into  absurdities.  Here,  his 
scene  is  a  Norland  forest,  "with  an  eternal 
look,"  which  might  puzzle  a  scene  painter 
as  it  startles  the  mind;  though,  as  far  as 
feeling  is  concerned,  we  understand  what 
is  meant.  There  is  a  dog  in  "Les  Aveu- 
gles"  as  there  was  in  "La  Princesse  Ma- 
leine,"  and  he  is  just  as  nervous  in  each 
154 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

case,  furnishing  for  each  situation  the  clue 
for  the  discovery  of  death. 

There  is  no  solution  for  this  fragment 
of  a  piece.  By  the  end,  we  know  the  de- 
gree of  affliction  each  person  has;  each  is 
distinguished  by  some  characteristic  mark 
which  indicates  the  extent  of  his  blindness. 
This  simple  treatment  is  filled  with  silence 
and  with  sound;  its  form  is  almost 
without  purpose,  so  free  the  dialogue  from 
logical  progression.  It  presents  the  same 
terror  to  be  found  in  "L'Interieur"  and 
"L'Intruse,"  yet  it  is  more  mystic  than 
either.  But  this  much  it  does  suggest :  that 
Maeterlinck  was  at  the  parting  of  the 
ways  as  regards  his  philosophical  attitude 
toward  life.  Often  readers  have  asked: 
Did  not  the  blind  people  return  safely  to 
the  asylum;  did  the  child  amongst  them 
who  could  see  aid  them  in  their  blind  gro- 
ping to  return?  And  even  now,  after  his 
advance  from  darkness  to  light,  after  his 
own  spiritual  wandering  and  scientific  in- 
155 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

vestigations,  Maeterlinck  is  still  wise  re- 
garding the  solution  of  "Les  Aveugles." 
That  meaning  must  be  reached  according 
to  the  faith  of  the  person  reading  the 
play. 

This  is  all  most  unsatisfactory  as 
drama;  it  is  provokingly  mystic  for  the 
stage  and  would  prove  tiresome  in  its  one 
key  for  the  actor  to  attempt.  Maeter- 
linck's method  was  that  of  the  musician,  of 
the  painter.  There  is  no  iconoclasm  of 
thought  here,  but  an  iconoclasm  of  detail. 
He  dramatized  the  five  senses,  and,  as 
Helen  Keller  has  done  in  a  more  hopeful 
manner,  he  made  of  blindness  a  sixth  sense. 
As  for  this  dead  faith  among  blind  men, 
we  shall  see  later  how  much  of  it  was  Mae- 
terlinck's personal  rejection  of  the  conven- 
tional church.  Taken  in  this  light,  "Les 
Aveugles"  is  significant  in  the  develop- 
ment of  Maurice  Maeterlinck.* 

*Sec  Lenevcu :  "Ibsen  et  Maeterlinck,"  III,  p.  269, 
seq. 

156 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

These  dramas  contain  haunting  sen- 
tences and  phrases.  First  they  are  illus- 
trative of  close  study  of  the  defects  in 
Nature.  Says  one  blind  man,  "The  voice 
has  a  different  sound  when  you  look  at 
anyone  fixedly."  Says  another:  "When 
there  is  sunlight,  I  see  a  blue  line  under 
my  eyelids."  Even  in  such  shadowy 
realms,  unlocated  in  actuality,  Maeterlinck 
preaches  that  it  is  the  business  of  the  blind 
to  know  where  they  are.  The  young  blind 
girl,  whose  presence  is  pitifully  lyric  and 
who  is  of  the  same  color  as  Melisande, 
has  memories  which  are  clearer  when  she 
does  not  think  upon  them,  for  she,  in  her 
time,  has  seen.  Every  now  and  then  these 
sightless  beings  utter  expressions  which 
point  to  materialism.  But  however  faulty 
they  are  in  their  essential  gloom,  Maeter- 
linck's marionette  dramas  are  all  spiritual- 
ized. They  give  you  Rossetti  groupings  as 
in  "Les  Sept  Princesses,"  but  once  the 
stage  is  set,  he  transfers  his  attention  to 
157 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

the  inner  states.  This  presents  an  eery 
effect,  and  the  result  is  that  Maeterlinck's 
first  plays  are  more  fairy  than  human.  His 
dialogue  simply  explains  the  condition  of 
his  static  theatre. 

"Les  Sept  Princesses"  (1891)*  was 
founded  upon  a  poem  contained  in  "Serres 
Chaudes."  It  is  a  tapestry  picture,  in 
which  all  the  emotion  of  the  observers  is 
used  to  give  value  to  the  interior  picture. 
In  this  point,  it  is  not  unlike  "L'Interieur." 
It  is  filled  with  reminiscent  touches  of  the 
poet  of  early  days,  even  reflecting  a  little 
of  the  romance  of  the  short  poem  known 
in  English  as  "And  If."  The  very  ar- 
rangement of  the  scene  suggests  tableaux 
or  living  pictures,  and  the  restless  concen- 
tration of  attention  upon  the  seventh  prin- 


*Published,  Bruxelles,  Lacomblez,  1891.  First 
translated  by  Richard  Hovey.  A  version  by  Char- 
lotte Porter  and  Helen  A.  Clarke  is  found  in  Poet- 
Lore,  1894,  6:  29-32;  87-93;  150-61.  Given  a  produc- 
tion at  the  Berkeley  Lyceum,  Feb.  21,  1893;  Jan.  18, 
1894- 

158 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

cess  suggests  that  something  unusual  has 
happened  to  her.  The  Prince  who  comes 
to  claim  one  of  his  seven  cousins  is  of  the 
same  proportions  as  Hjalmar,  and  the  old 
King  and  Queen,  sadly  distraught,  are  of 
the  same  mental  calibre  as  King  Hjalmar. 
"Les  Sept  Princesses"  is  simply  another  il- 
lustration of  Maeterlinck's  power  to  sug- 
gest the  unusual  by  misplacement  of  the 
usual.  These  three  look  through  the  win- 
dow at  the  sleeping  princesses  within  a 
room  or  hall,  graced  with  mirrors  and  a 
long  flight  of  seven  marble  steps.  These 
fair,  white,  slender  girls  are  sleeping  beau- 
ties, waiting  to  be  awakened,  but  one  has 
waited  too  long,  and  it  is  upon  this  one 
that  the  strangeness  of  the  drama  falls. 

Gradually,  the  Queen's  nervousness  in- 
creases to  immense  proportions;  her  vision 
becomes  as  terrifying  as  that  of  the  Grand- 
father in  "LTntruse."  It  is  surely  a  trick 
that  Maeterlinck  plays  so  often,  so  deli- 
cately, so  effectively.  By  the  slightest  sense 
159 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

he  is  able  to  suggest  what  Henry  James 
considers  is  so  difficult  to  catch  in  litera- 
ture— a  recognition  of  the  passage  of  time, 
of  the  flow  of  distance.  He  does  not  at- 
tempt to  excuse  the  unnaturalness  of  the 
objects  that  act  for  him;  in  fact  his  char- 
acters often  act  without  reason,  since,  to 
the  Maeterlinck  of  this  period,  fatality 
defies  reason. 

These  spectral  princesses  behind  glass 
are  uncanny.  Maeterlinck's  women  either 
have  the  long  hair  of  sick  people,  or  their 
faces  bear  the  pallor  of  death.  The  Queen 
more  and  more  works  herself  up  to  mad 
frenzy,  until  the  reader  fairly  feels  the 
poor  souls  of  these  helpless  princesses 
whirled  in  a  mighty  force  beyond  human 
power.  Yet,  amidst  all  this  anxiety,  they 
sleep,  they  hardly  stir,  and  most  assuredly 
there  is  something  wrong  with  Ursula, 
the  seventh  girl.  The  King  tries  to  com- 
fort his  Queen,  but  all  to  no  avail.  Hence, 
the  young  Prince  is  sent  through  vaults, 
160 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

dark  with  dread,  to  a  movable  slab  in  the 
floor;  he  is  to  discover  the  real  truth  of 
the  sleeping  princesses.  And  while  he  is 
gone,  the  old  couple  keep  watch  at  the 
window.  Then  the  suspense  becomes 
doubled;  they  wait,  they  watch,  they  fear, 
they  tremble,  and  finally  the  slab  gives  way 
at  the  moment  that  six  of  the  princesses 
open  their  eyes  and  rise  simultaneously. 
It  is  Ursula  who  does  not  stir.  The  Queen 
is  in  frenzy  as  she  sees  the  Prince  touch 
the  bare  arm  of  the  prostrate  girl.  Then 
there  is  consternation,  tableaux,  and  a  black 
curtain  falls  brusquely  to  cut  off  the  gen- 
eral terror  and  tumult. 

There  is  no  fatality  in  this;  it  is  mere 
picture,  and  as  a  mere  picture  it  is  deeply 
romantic.  It  is  in  no  way  human  as  "L'ln- 
terieur"  is  human.  Yet  the  method  of 
treatment  is  just  the  same.  Maeterlinck's 
dramas  are  delicate  vapours  blown  into 
being  according  to  a  theory  of  art.  But  I 
think  that  either  the  practice  convinced  him 
161 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

finally  of  the  impracticableness  of  spiritual 
situation  on  the  stage,  or  else  Madame 
Maeterlinck  began  to  add  substance  to  his 
shadows. 


162 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  FURTHER  PRACTICE  OF  A  THEORY 


"This  dwelling  in  the  shadow  .  .  .  is  the 
dominant  characteristic  of  Maurice  Mae- 
terlinck. In  'The  Princess  Maleine,'  in 
'The  Intruder1  and  'The  Blind,' — in  one 
and  all  of  these,  to  his  latest  production, 
he  hardly  ever  moves  out  of  the  shadow  of 
a  strange  and  affecting  imaginative  gloom. 
.  .  .  His  method  is  a  simple  one;  but 
it  is  that  kind  of  simplicity  which  involves 
a  subtle  and  artistic  mind.  Often  he  relies 
upon  wards  as  abstractions,  in  order  to 
convey  the  impression  that  is  in  his  own 
mind,  and  this  accounts  for  the  bewilder- 
ment which  some  of  his  characteristic 
mannerisms  cause  to  many  readers.  Where 
they  see  simple  repetition,  a  vain  and  per- 
haps childish  monotony,  Maeterlinck  is 
really  endeavoring  to  emphasize  the  im- 
pression he  seeks  to  convey,  by  dwelling 
upon  certain  images,  accentuating  certain 
words,  evoking  certain  mental  melodies  or 
rhythms  full  of  a  certain  subtle  suggestion 
of  their  own." — William  Sharp. 

THERE  is  no  doubt  that  what  Maeter- 
linck attempted  to  do  with  his  theory 
of  dramatic  art  was  to  illustrate  his  con- 
163 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

ception  of  the  power  of  silence — that  si- 
lence which  Goethe  and  Carlyle  lauded. 
He  wrote:  "A  time  will  come,  perhaps, 
when  our  souls  will  know  of  each  other 
without  the  intermediary  of  the  senses. 

It  is  only  when  life  is  sluggish  with- 
in us  that  we  speak."  But  such  ideas 
would  not  long  hold  in  drama,  however 
much  they  might  suit  the  conventions  of 
poetry.  Maeterlinck's  next  play,  "Pelleas 
et  Melisande"*  (1892),  is  a  little  more 
definitely  constructed;  it  at  least  attempts 
to  do  more  than  hint  at  a  passionate  story. 

*"Pelleas  et  Melisande"  first  appeared  in  print  at 
Bruxelles,  Lacomblez,  in  1892,  and  its  premiere  pro- 
duction was  given  at  the  Theatre  des  Bouffes- 
Parisiens,  on  May  16,  1893,  with  Lugne-Poe  as 
Golaud,  and  with  Mme.  Marie  Aubry  as  Pelleas.  It 
was  translated  in  Poet-Lore  for  Aug.- Sept.,  1894, 
p.  413.  See  William  Archer:  "Study  and  the  Stage," 
1899,  pp.  133-37.  Arthur  Symons:  "Plays.  Acting,  and 
Music,"  1003,  p.  77.  Andrew  Lang:  Review  of  play, 
///.  Lend.  N.,  136:  384.  E.  E.  Hale,  Jr.:  Dial,  18: 
174.  See  also  Mrs.  Franz  Liebich's  volume  in  John 
Lane's  "Living  Masters  of  Music  Series":  "Claude- 
Achille-Debussy."  See  an  edition  of  "Pelleas  et 
Melisande,"  illustrated  with  scenes  from  the  opera, 
and  with  an  introduction  by  the  present  writer 
(T.  Y.  Crowell  &  Co.). 

164 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

Based  as  it  is  upon  the  Dante  episode  of 
Francesca  da  Rimini,  it  is  exquisitely  beau- 
tiful and  tender  as  a  mere  picture,  but  it 
still  is  devoid  of  the  red  human  blood  that 
was  not  to  come  until  "Monna  Vanna" 
proclaimed  the  full  influence  of  Maeter- 
linck's wife. 

"Pelleas  et  Melisande"  is  pale  and  in- 
definite. It  contains  all  the  types  illus- 
trated in  previous  plays,  and  in  a  few 
scenes  it  mounts  up  to  real  dramatic  value, 
as  when  Yniold,  like  the  child  in  Marion 
Crawford's  version  of  the  Francesca  le- 
gend, spies  upon  the  two  lovers,  repeating 
all  he  sees  to  Golaud.  It  is  the  old,  old 
tragedy  of  a  youth  falling  in  love  with  his 
brother's  wife,  and  of  the  direful  murder 
in  the  end. 

Before  Claude  Debussy  wrote  his  music 
for  "Pelleas  et  Melisande,"  he  had  com- 
posed many  songs  to  the  words  of  Ros- 
setti,  Verlaine,  and  Mallarme;  and  even 
before  he  ever  thought  of  turning  to  Mae- 
165 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

terlinck,  it  was  very  evident  to  the  musical 
world  that  he  was  attempting  in  music  to 
produce  the  identical  spiritual  effects  which 
the  modern  mystic  poets  were  trying  to 
reach  by  means  of  words  and  disjointed 
phrases.  One  feels  this  very  strongly 
after  reading  Lawrence  Oilman's  con- 
cise and  analytical  examination  of  the  new 
opera  score,* — a  critique  which  presents 
all  that  is  necessary  for  the  average  music- 
lover  to  know. 

The  opera  of  "Pelleas  et  Melisande" 
was  written  between  1893  and  1895,  and 
was  presented  at  the  Opera-Comique  in 
Paris  for  the  first  time  on  April  30,  1902; 
it  was  followed  the  morning  after  by  a 
storm  of  conflicting  opinion.  This  was 
faintly  echoed  across  the  Atlantic,  but 

*"Debussy's  Pelleas  et  Melisande:  A  Guide  to  the 
Opera,  by  Lawrence  Oilman.  Schirmer.  See  also 
Mr.  Gilman's  review  of  the  opera,  Harp.  Wk.,  52:  25. 
The  opera  was  presented  at  Covent  Garden  (Lon- 
don), during  the  season  of  1910.  Other  premieres 
are  Theatre  de  la  Monnaie,  Brussels,  Jan.  9,  1907; 
Frankfort,  April  19,  1907. 

166 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

though  it  succeeded  in  subjecting  Debus- 
sy to  serious  consideration  abroad,  the 
opera  was  passed  over  by  the  American 
impresarios,  until  Oscar  Hammerstein 
added  another  daring  move  to  his  already 
daring  attempt  with  Charpentier's 
"Louise" — which  score  had  swung  the 
pendulum  back  to  ordinary  life,  interpre- 
ting upon  the  operatic  stage  what  Maeter- 
linck tried  to  set  forth  in  an  essay  on 
"Le  Tragique  Quotidien." 

When  the  opera  was  first  produced  at 
the  Manhattan  Opera  House  on  February 
19,  1908,  the  public  sat  bewildered,  for 
never  before  had  the  stage  setting  been  so 
rare  in  its  external  beauty.  The  Nature 
element  in  "Pelleas  et  Melisande"  is  as 
wild  and  as  mystic  as  it  is  in  Hauptmann's 
"The  Sunken  Bell,"  though  its  general 
structure  and  meaning  are  by  far  more 
simple.  Yet  so  fraught  are  both  with  spir- 
itual gloom  that  they  fail  to  catch  any  of 
the  glint  of  sunlight  which  decorates  and 
167 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

makes  fresh  the  scenes  in  "As  You  Like  it." 
The  same  cast  of  principals  as  sang  at 
the  Opera-Comique  was  again  assembled 
at  the  Manhattan:  Mary  Garden,  Ger- 
ville-Reache,  Jean  Perrier,  and  Hector 
Dufranne.  Through  twelve  scenes,  link- 
ed together  by  orchestral  interludes  which 
had  been  composed  after  the  opera  had 
been  put  into  rehearsal  in  Paris,  the  hours 
sped  on  till  midnight  on  that  distinctive 
evening. 

I  do  not  intend  to  deal  with  the  musical 
aspect  of  "Pelleas  et  Melisande."  Debus- 
sy is  here  used  to  point  a  moral.  The 
musical  critic  declared  that  his  anti-lyric 
attitude  was  retrogressive,  and  W.  J.  Hen- 
derson asserted  his  belief  that  the  French 
opera  of  the  future  would  be  much  closer 
to  "Carmen"  than  to  "Pelleas  et  Meli- 
sande." But,  granting  that  the  step  back- 
ward is  almost  to  mediaeval  times,  yet  is 
there  something  of  the  Wagner  disciple  in 

Debussy. 

168 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

Imbued  with  the  idea  of  Maeterlinck's 
infantile  drama,  and  considering  to  the  full 
every  limitation  of  his  marionette  theory 
and  of  his  habit  of  contrasting  youth  with 
old  age,  as  he  does  in  nearly  every  one  of 
his  plays,  Henry  Krehbiel  wrote: 

"He  who  would  enjoy  the  musical  in- 
tegument of  this  play  must  have  cultivated 
a  craving  for  dissonance  in  harmony,  and 
find  relish  in  combinations  of  tones  that 
sting  and  blister  and  pain  and  outrage  the 


ear." 


From  this  it  is  not  difficult  to  glean  that 
if  there  is  beauty  at  all  in  the  orchestra- 
tion, such  beauty  is  born  of  a  certain  law- 
lessness, or  at  any  rate  a  certain  radical 
departure  from  the  accepted  canons  of 
orchestration.  And  what  Charles  Henry 
Meltzer  has  said  of  the  opera  may  as  well 
be  said  of  Maeterlinck  and  his  libretto: 
"Where  other  composers  would  have  sung, 
Debussy  has  sighed;  where  others  might 
169 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

have  painted  in  bold,  evident  colors,  he 
has  only  hinted  at  color." 

Assuredly,  as  the  audience  sat  there  and 
heard  the  liquid  run  of  harps  during  the 
scene  in  which  Melisande's  wedding-ring 
splashes  into  the  depths  of  the  Fountain 
of  the  Blind,  they  must  have  been  remind- 
ed of  Rautenderlein.  Probably  the  for- 
est secret  in  "Siegfried,"  or  the  spirit  of 
"Hansel  und  Gretel"  touched  them,  as  Go- 
laud  first  discovered  the  crownless,  gold- 
haired  princess  of  nowhere,  a  sleeping 
babe  in  the  wood.  And  in  the  death-scene, 
so  indicative  of  the  childish  simplicity  with 
which  Maeterlinck  handles  the  inevitable 
forces  of  destiny,  perhaps  they  further 
recognized  semblances  of  that  delicate, 
fragile  Hannele  of  Hauptmann's  spiritual 
poem. 

The  operatic  score  represented  a  clash 

of  theories;  dissonance  set  the  formal  ear 

on  edge,  yet  at  the  same  time  gripped  the 

soul  with  an  intangible  and  undefinable  ef- 

170 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

feet.  Debussy's  "Pelleas  et  Melisande"  is 
thoroughly  unmelodic;  the  Gregorian 
chant  combinations  form  but  a  running 
musical  commentary  for  the  poetic  text. 
Nowhere  is  there  the  seductiveness  of 
"Tristan  und  Isolde."  Even  the  ensem- 
ble is  strikingly  monotone,  and  the  mo- 
tives are  difficult  to  follow  without  a  close 
analysis  of  the  score.  Even  to  the  unin- 
itiated, Wagner  is  distinct  and  clear  in  this 
respect ;  he  is  both  dynamic  and  subtle ;  his 
"Gotterdammerung"  is  a  joy  of  recurrent 
themes  that  enrich  the  entire  Nibelungen- 
lied  Ring,  and  the  emotional  values  throb 
in  repetition  at  unerring  moments. 

Not  so  in  Debussy's  score.*  You  go 
away  with  no  lingering  arias,  but  with  an 
indistinct  effect,  partly  accentuated  by  an 
indefinite  libretto.  Doubtless  such  tonal 
mist  is  appropriate  for  the  symbolic 
drama,  but  music  is  sufficiently  illusive,  suf- 

*See  Le  Theatre,  June  II,  1902,  No.  84;  dealing 
fully  with  "Pelleas  et  Melisande." 

171 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

ficiently  akin  to  soul-speech,  without  the 
necessity  for  creating  a  symbol  within  a 
symbol.  This  absence  of  melodic  voice 
opportunities  has  been  defended  by  De- 
bussy, and  it  demonstrates  to  what  ends 
Maeterlinck's  theory  was  canied. 

"I  desired,"  he  is  reported  to  have  said, 
"that  the  action  should  never  stop,  that  it 
should  continue,  uninterrupted.  I  aimed 
to  dispense  with  superfluous  musical 
phrases.  On  hearing  a  work,  the  audience 
is  accustomed  to  experience  two  species  of 
distinct  emotions:  the  musical  emotion  on 
one  hand,  the  emotion  of  character  on  the 
other.  Generally,  these  are  experienced 
iuccessively.  I  have  contended  that  these 
two  emotions  can  be  perfectly  blended; 
that  they  are,  in  fact,  simultaneous.  Mel- 
ody, if  I  may  say  so,  is  almost  anti-lyric; 
it  is  powerless  to  explain  the  variableness 
of  souls  and  of  life;  it  is  essentially  suited 
to  the  chanson,  which  expresses  a  fixed 
sentiment.  I  have  never  consented  to  any- 
172 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

thing  in  my  music  which,  through  technical 
requirement,  would  blunt  or  retard  the  de- 
velopment of  the  sentiment  and  passion  in 
my  characters.  Melody  disappears  just  as 
soon  as  one  admits  that,  by  its  absence,  it 
leaves  the  characters  full  liberty  of  move- 
ment, of  voice,  of  joy,  or  of  grief." 

So  that  this  opera  of  Debussy's,  while 
more  than  an  experiment,  is  as  much 
above  some  of  his  early  songs  as  "Pel- 
leas  et  Melisande"  is  above  "Serres 
Chaudes."  At  least,  it  represents  a  theory, 
just  as  Maeterlinck  has  based  the  compo- 
sition of  his  plays  upon  a  theory  which  has 
shaped  itself  from  a  mere  formless  experi- 
ment into  something  of  substance,  passing 
from  windy  sighs  and  pregnant  vacancies 
into  human  warmth  and  distinct  delinea- 
tion. Inasmuch  as  there  has  been,  in  the 
case  of  Maeterlinck,  an  ever-widening  gulf 
between  a  theory  conceived  and  a  theory 
matured,  so  there  will  be  a  modification 
of  Debussy's  work,  provided  it  goes 
173 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

through  a  natural  period  of  development. 

It  is  a  question  as  to  whether  or  not  this 
score  of  "Pelleas  et  Melisande,"  despite  a 
certain  beauty  in  its  wandering  orchestral 
tendency,  will  not  be  lost  to  future  genera- 
tions. It  is  a  curious  score,  but  in  no  way 
a  wonderful  score.  At  one  time,  I  had  oc- 
casion to  compile  a  music  bibliography  on 
"Francesca  da  Rimini."  The  number  of 
operas  founded  upon  the  Dante  love  story 
was  surprising:  I  traced  Strepponi,  Car- 
lini,  Generali,  Mercadante,  Gide,  and 
countless  others,  mere  names  to  the  pres- 
ent generation.  Even  the  orchestrations 
of  Mancinelli,  Rossini,  Ambrose  Thomas, 
Arthur  Foote  and  Tschaikowsky,  are  only 
vaguely  remembered  and  scarcely  account- 
ed of  historic  worth.  To  this  list  I  am 
tempted  to  add  Debussy's  score,  for,  in  the 
final  analysis  of  "Pelleas  et  Melisande," 
Maeterlinck  has  given  us  a  faint  Italian 
love-story  from  Dante. 

Only  a  glimmer  of  the  ill-feeling  that 
174 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

exists  between  Maeterlinck  and  Debussy 
has  reached  America,  and  it  is  not  of  much 
significance.  Its  source  may  be  traced  to 
the  desire  of  the  poet  to  have  his  wife  sing 
the  title  role,  or  to  the  wish  of  the  com- 
poser to  have  Mary  Garden.  But  a  more 
vital  explanation  would  be  that  Maeter- 
linck disliked  having  his  text  cut  in  any  par- 
ticular to  satisfy  the  demands  of  the  ope- 
ratic stage.  The  feeling  ran  so  high  that 
Maeterlinck  openly  expressed  his  hope 
that  the  music  would  fail,  and  he  there- 
upon so  arranged  that  Madame  Maeter- 
linck now  has  the  option  always  to  assume 
the  important  female  role  in  any  opera 
based  on  her  husband's  libretto.  It  is  well 
to  record  her  appearance  in  Dukas's 
"Ariane  et  Barbe-Bleue"  and  in  Ferv- 
rier's  "Monna  Vanna." 

We  understand  some  just  causes  for 
many  technical  disputes  between  the  com- 
poser and  the  librettist  of  "Pelleas  et  Meli- 
sande."  The  omission  of  certain  significant 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

scenes  points  to  their  being  beyond  the  lyr- 
ical scope  of  Debussy.  The  first  scene  of 
the  first  act  is  cut ;  its  significance  in  the  play 
is  but  to  set  the  proper  swing  to  the  lines, 
and  to  suggest  the  ancient  isolation  of  the 
castle.  There  is  no  musical  treatment  of 
the  fourth  scene  to  the  second  act,  explain- 
ing the  human  causes  which,  with  the 
workings  of  fate,  keep  the  young  lovers 
together.  Then,  there  is  the  opening 
scene  of  the  third  act,  in  which,  for  the 
first  and  only  time,  Pelleas  and  Melisande 
and  Yniold  are  brought  into  bodily  rela- 
tion. Why  it  is  that  Debussy  should  have 
omitted  this  opportunity  is  hardly  explain- 
able. As  the  dialogue  reads,  the  whole  at- 
mosphere here  settles  down  to  one  of  fore- 
boding; the  tragedy  becomes  imminent, 
and  at  this  point  it  is  felt  to  be  inevitable  to 
a  stronger  degree  than  anywhere  else. 
There  is  a  half-dreamy  youthfulness  in  the 
situation,  an  innocence  which  is  all  so  piti- 
ful since  it  is  so  blind. 
176 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

By  this  scene,  which  Debussy  omits,  we 
are  able  to  foreshadow  the  poignancy  of 
the  prattle  between  Yniold  and  his  father 
in  the  garden ;  by  this,  we  are  made  to  un- 
derstand, on  the  entrance  of  Golaud,  how 
mellow,  how  human  his  exclamation, 
"What  children!"  in  a  later  act — a  plaint 
emphasized  in  all  the  Francesco,  dramas 
of  modern  times,  and  which  bestows  upon 
the  character,  whether  Golaud  or  Glan- 
ciotto,  the  bulk  of  our  sympathy.  The 
variety  of  themes  here  concentrated,  and 
the  failure  of  Debussy  to  treat  them,  lead 
to  the  inference  that  his  skill  as  to  the- 
matic handling  is  limited;  that  his  musical 
theory,  with  its  monotone  results,  does  not 
admit  of  diversified  combinations  for  soul 
effects.  In  this  respect,  Maeterlinck's 
dominant  mood  would  suggest  his  limita- 
:ion  where  tone-color  is  concerned.  The 
third  scene  of  the  fourth  act  creates  the 
pastoral  dream  spirit  surrounding  Yniold 
and  the  Shepherd;  innocence  and  loneli- 
177 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

ness  here  become  oppressive  beside  the 
gathering  force  of  impending  tragedy.  A 
final  omission  is  made  of  the  first  scene 
to  the  last  act,  a  narrative,  recitative  pas- 
sage, proclaiming  desolation  and  fear. 

Structurally,  Debussy's  score  is  full  of 
shadows;  we  cannot  say  that  ardour  is  ex- 
pressed, it  is  merely  suggested.  There  is 
no  effect  obtained  directly;  the  solemn 
note,  the  brooding  atmosphere,  the  fate 
chords,  the  simple  clearness  of  feminine 
expression,  the  naivete  which  the  text  so 
wonderfully  upholds, — all  these  varying 
hints  of  changing  psychological  states  are 
in  some  vague  manner  introduced  and 
vaguely  felt.  I  looked  for  the  dominant 
characteristics  of  Maeterlinck's  drama — 
the  liquid  spirit  suffusing  the  lives  of  these 
half-real  beings;  I  looked  for  a  structural 
background  of  well-defined  Nature  varia- 
tions, and  of  phrase  repetitions  in  music  as 
there  were  in  dialogue.  But  I  found  noth- 
ing of  these. 

178 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

The  orchestration  undoubtedly  possess- 
es infinite  beauties,  finely  suggested;  the 
sense  impressions  are  probably  too  fine, 
and  confusion  is  therefore  the  result.  But 
this  much  is  certain:  There  is  a  man  in 
California,  a  wizard  of  scientific  garden- 
ing. We  all  know  what  Luther  Burbank 
is  doing  in  developing  the  infinite  resources 
of  Nature.  Considering  what  science  is 
made  to  accomplish  in  the  modification  of 
form,  we  dare  not  suggest  the  limitations, 
the  finality  of  any  physical  condition.  And 
so  is  it  with  drama.  We  have  seen  conven- 
tion over-ridden ;  we  have  heard  the  decla- 
ration that  the  opportunities  for  effect  are 
as  manifold  as  the  human  varieties  they 
represent.  Debussy  believes  that  beyond 
form,  deep  down  in  the  soul  of  man,  there 
dwells  a  tonal  scale  which,  because  it  dif- 
fers from  the  acknowledged  scale  in  the 
balance  of  chord  with  chord,  is  none  the 
less  effective  in  orchestration — as  much  so 
as  discord  in  Wagner.  What  matter  musi- 
179 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

cal  restrictions  of  the  past;  if  the  subtle 
results  are  obtainable  in  other  ways,  if  the 
ensemble  is  effective,  then  the  composer  is 
wise  to  experiment.  In  that  respect,  not 
only  are  Maeterlinck  and  Debussy  reform- 
ers in  the  same  way,  but  they  have  each 
proven,  one  by  sound,  the  other  by  words, 
that  there  is  a  super-mystical  stratum 
to  music  which  had  not  heretofore  been 
used. 

It  has  been  claimed  that  only  by  means 
of  music  can  the  full  atmosphere  of  "Pel- 
leas  et  Melisande"  be  realized.  Mrs.  Pat- 
rick Campbell  resorted  to  it  in  her  pro- 
duction of  Mackail's*  translation  of  the 

*0ther  translations  were  made  by  Richard  Hovey, 
Laurence  Alma  Tadema,  and  the  editors  of  Poet- 
Lore.  The  play  in  London  was  given  at  the  Prince 
of  Wales  Theatre,  June,  1898,  and  Mrs.  Campbell 
was  supported  by  Mr.  Forbes-Robertson  as  GolauJ 
and  by  Mr.  Martin  Harvey  as  Pelltas. 

At  a  later  period,  both  in  London  and  America. 
Mrs.  Campbell  supported  Mme.  Sarah  Bernhardt'« 
Pelleas.  See  Max  Beerbohm  in  the  Saturday  Re- 
view, June  25,  1898,  and  July  9,  1904.  M.  Lugne- 
Poe's  company  from  L'CEuvre  visited  London  in 
1895,  Mile.  Marthe  Mellot  appearing  as  Pelleas  with 

180 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

play.  To  gain  effect,  she  resorted  to  the 
gauze  curtain  and  to  the  music  by  Gabriel 
Faure.  But  to  attempt  explaining  the  shad- 
owy theatre  of  this  dramatist  by  means  of 
mass  will  be  fraught  with  no  results.  He 
must  be  reached  through  the  limitation!  of 
his  theory,  just  as  the  finality  of  Debussy's 
position  among  musicians  will  be  deter- 
mined by  the  durability  of  his  practice, 
and  by  how  far  his  ideas  will  stand  the  test 
of  consistent  analysis.  Here  then  is  the 
close  connection  existing  between  the  musi- 
cian and  the  librettist;  they  both  builded 
for  themselves  in  their  different  arts;  they 
both  defied  tradition  and  have  been  laugh- 
ed to  scorn  by  those  who  cannot  see  be- 
yond the  external  excitation,  and  who  can- 
not hear  beyond  the  agreeableness  of  the 
chanson. 

Yet,   however  pale   "Pelleas   et   Meli- 
sande"  may  be  as  a  drama,  I  cannot  agree 

great  effect.  See  Bernard  Shaw  in  the  Saturday  Re- 
view, March  30,  1895.  Francisque  Sarcey  ridiculed 
the  play  in  his  "Quarante  Ans  de  Theatre." 

181 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

with  William  Sharp  when  he  designates  it 
as  Maeterlinck's  Sedan.  There  have  been 
tragedies  with  more  marked  lines,  with 
swifter  and  more  violent  action,  but  the 
very  simplicity  of  all  the  beauty  in  this 
piece  that  deals  with  the  love  of  two  chil- 
dren only  serves  to  accentuate  the  tragedy 
that  takes  place.  I  shall  consider  later  the 
growth  of  the  feminine  element  in  Maeter- 
linck. But  MeUsande  is  no  better  off 
in  knowledge  than  Malelne.  With  her 
golden  crown,  when  Golaud  finds  her  in 
the  woods,  she  is  simply  a  fairy  with  no 
local  habitation  and  with  only  a  name. 
Fate  seems  to  move  unerringly  from  the 
time  when  Melisande's  wedding-ring  slips 
from  her  finger  into  the  fountain,  and  when 
Golaud  discovers  it,  at  the  same  moment 
first  gaining  suspicion  of  some  unusual 
feeling  in  the  air.  Here  is  a  lyric  love- 
story  with  stray  flecks  of  wisdom  from 
Arkel,  who,  to  be  wise  must  be  old.  There 
is  much  of  the  garden  atmosphere  in  the 
182 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

play;  there  is  a  balcony  scene,  with  none 
of  the  passion  of  "Romeo  and  Juliet,"  but 
with  discovery  bound  up  in  the  golden 
shower  of  Melisande' s  hair.  Golaud's  ad- 
vice to  Pelleas,  heightened  by  their  visit 
together  to  the  sickly  vaults  of  the  castle,  is 
the  one  straightforward  passage  in  the 
drama.  But  it  is  not  a  play  of  happiness; 
it  is  one  of  slow-moving  melancholy  in 
which  Golaud  is  to  be  pitied  for  his  knowl- 
edge and  Melisande  to  be  pitied  for  her 
ignorance.  Yet  she  walks  to  the  brink 
knowingly  and  with  desire,  and,  in  the  for- 
est, Golaud  comes  upon  them,  slaying 
Pelleas,  and  wounding  Melisande,  after 
he  has  pursued  her  through  the  wood  in 
silence. 

In  the  midst  of  the  atmosphere  of  death, 
Melisande  gives  birth  to  a  child — "a  little 
wax  figure  that  must  live  in  lamb's  wool." 
Golaud  truly  loved  this  golden-haired  prin- 
cess, this  fairy  from  nowhere.  The  blow 
he  gave  her  came  when  it  was  most  tragic, 
183 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

but  as  the  physician  said,  "She  was  born 
without  reason  ...  to  die.  and 
she  dies  without  reason.  .  .  ."  This 
is  the  death  scene,  not  of  a  woman,  but  of 
a  soul.  I  agree  with  Dr.  Slosson*  that  the 
best  answer  to  those  who  would  know 
what  Melisande  means,  is  to  quote  Arkel's 
words  at  the  last :  "'Twas  a  poor  little  mys- 
terious being,  like  everybody."  And  that 
is  what  Maeterlinck  is  trying  to  do,  both 
in  his  drama  and  in  his  philosophy — to 
show  the  subtle  forces  affecting  the  soul  of 
each  and  every  mortal  being. 

It  was  after  playing  "Macbeth"  at 
Saint-Wandrille  Abbey  that  Madame 
Maeterlinck  essayed  to  give  an  open-air 
performance  of  "Pelleas  et  Melisande"  in 
September,  1910.  Her  distinction  between 
Maeterlinck  and  Shakespeare  is  found  in 
her  conviction  that,  however  close  to  Na- 
ture the  drama  of  "Macbeth"  is  placed,  it 
still  remains  fiction,  whereas  "Pelleas  et 

*The  Independent,  70:  933  seq. 
184 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

Melisande"  slips  into  natural  surroundings 
as  a  diamond  fits  into  its  setting.  "It 
seems,"  so  she  said,  writing  of  the  event 
afterwards,  "as  though  all  the  glorious 
melancholy  accidents  that  form  the  history 
of  Saint- Wandrille  had  met  throughout 
the  centuries  to  build  a  natural  and  peer- 
less cradle  for  Maeterlinck's  work."  Thus 
speaks  the  actress,  who  always  refers  to 
her  husband  by  his  surname,  as  though  al- 
ready he  were  among  the  immortals. 

Here,  then,  was  an  attempt,  on  that  eve- 
ning when  a  few  people  were  invited  to 
Saint-Wandrille,  to  interpret  this  child 
tragedy  in  as  natural  a  manner  as  possible. 
Real  tears  were  shed,  and  the  rain  that 
fell  only  heightened  the  effect  as  Meli- 
sande had  to  run  to  the  Abbey  from  the 
forest,  a  distance  of  a  quarter  of  a  mile. 
It  was  all  so  living  to  the  actress  that  she 
claims  she  lost  every  conscious  power 
of  the  player,  and,  entering  the  soul  of  the 
child  heroine,  "formed  a  part  of  an  ani- 
185 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

mated  and  wonderful  tapestry."  And  do 
we  not  realize  how  far  Maeterlinck's  cast 
of  thought  has  control  of  her,  in  her  final 
estimate  of  her  bashfulness,  when  the  per- 
formance was  over;  when — as  she  consid- 
ered— the  audience  would  have  to  be 
brought  back  to  common  existence? 
"How,"  she  writes,  "shall  I  dispel  the  il- 
lusion? The  humble  reality  is  my  life;  it 
is  the  little  human  will  that  dared  to  play 
with  Nature,  and  all  the  great  beauties  of 
the  earth." 

Save  for  the  fact  that  both  in  "Mac- 
beth" and  "Pelleas  et  Melisande,"  the  au- 
dience had  to  follow  the  scenes  and  action, 
across  fields  and  from  hall  to  hall,  from 
room  to  room,  carrying  with  them  their 
camp-stools — an  exertion  which  alone 
might  dispel  the  illusion  for  most  of  us — 
save  for  this,  the  spatial  appeal  of  the  per- 
formance must  have  been  notable.  I  quote 
an  extract  from  the  London  Times: 

"One  of  the  chief  advantages  of  this 
186 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

natural  over  the  artificial  stage  is,  of 
course,  the  sense  of  space.  Entrances  and 
exits,  instead  of  having  the  abrupt  Jack-in- 
the-box  air  imposed  on  them  in  the  usual 
theatre,  instead  of  being,  in  short,  stage- 
conventions,  become  realities,  the  gradual 
process  beginning  or  ending  in  the  actual 
distance.  Golaud  is  seen  tramping  in  full 
armor  through  the  wood  long  before  he 
comes  upon  the  strayed  Melisande  at  the 
fountain.  When  Golaud  brings  his  child- 
bride  home  you  see  the  family  at  the  castle, 
old  King  Arkel,  Queen  Genevieve,  and  the 
rest,  gathered  on  the  steps,  and  far  off  the 
torchlit  wedding  procession  slowly  wend- 
ing its  way  towards  them.  The  imaginary 
space  and  time  of  the  story  coincide  with 
the  real  space  and  time.  That  is  one  cause 
of  the  perfect  illusion.  Another  is  pecu- 
liar to  Saint- Wandrille ;  it  is  the  perfect 
appropriateness  of  the  building  to  the 
story  enacted  in  and  round  it.  Melisande 
leans  out  of  a  casement  in  a  tower,  while 
187 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

Pelleas  coils  her  long  hair  round  his  throat. 
Golaud  holds  little  Yniold  up  to  the  case- 
ment that  he  may  report  what  the  lovers 
are  doing  within.  Well,  here  are  the  real 
tower  and  casement,  as  mediaeval  as  you 
please,  and  further,  there  are  all  the  real 
physical  accidents  of  the  situation.  You 
have  not  to  content  yourself  with  being 
told  by  Melisande,  as  she  looks  over  Pel- 
leas's  shoulder,  that  she  sees  Golaud,  with 
drawn  sword,  lurking  in  the  depths  of  the 
wood;  you  can  see  him  for  yourself.  And 
as  Pelleas  is  stricken  to  death  and  Meli- 
sande flees  back  to  the  castle,  wailing  out, 
'Je  n'al  pas  de  courage!'  you  can  hear  her 
little  feet  pattering  into  the  distance 
through  the  sodden  grass.  By  the  time 
this  critical  scene  has  been  reached  the  au- 
dience has  become  hypnotized.  When  the 
guides  summon  us  to  follow  them  else- 
where we  start  as  from  a  dream.  That  is 
the  effect  of  the  whole  thing,  the  effect  of 
a  dream;  and  what  is  'Pelleas  et  Meli- 
188 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

sande'  but  a  dream  by  a  dreamer  of  beau- 
tiful dreams?" 

Viewed  from  these  many  aspects,  there- 
fore, "Pelleas  et  Melisande"  is  a  Nature 
fairy  tale  as  well  as  a  melodic  and  poetic 
drama.  And  it  becomes  very  evident  to 
students,  before  they  have  read  Ernest 
Newman's  suggestive  analysis  of  "Maeter- 
linck and  Music,"*  how  similar  the  ef- 
forts of  Wagner  and  Maeterlinck  to 
sound  the  inner  depths  of  the  soul.  From 
the  standpoint  of  characterization,  reason 
never  touches  Melisande.  In  fact,  these 
early  heroines  of  Maeterlinck  act  through 
intuition,  and,  overpowered  by  sudden  rise 
of  feeling,  show  no  will  power  or  self- 
control.  They  are  innocent  up  to  the 
point  of  overwhelming  desire;  then  they 
succumb,  giving  as  their  excuse  that  they 
cannot  disobey  the  force  that  compels 
them  onward.  They  feel  no  remorse ;  they 

* Atlantic,  88:  769-77,  Dec.,  1901;  also  read  L. 
Gilman  on  "Maeterlinck  in  Music,"  Harp.  Wk., 
So:  59. 

189 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

bow  before  any  consequence  that  may 
arise.  Nevertheless,  Maeterlinck  has 
that  control  of  his  art  which  augments  the 
atmosphere  of  fear,  making  innocence  and 
human  weakness  like  slender  stalks  in  a 
flame  of  fire.  When  people  would  most 
laugh  his  mannerisms  to  scorn,  they  are 
held  therefrom  by  a  feeling  that  some- 
where in  the  mist  is  the  substance  out  of 
which  souls  are  born  to  suffer.  Unfortu- 
nately at  this  period,  Maeterlinck  rarely 
thought  that  they  were  born  to  be  happy. 
In  "Alladine  et  Palomides"*  we  have 
a  continuance  of  "Pelleas  et  Melisande," 
even  as  the  latter  was  a  fuller  treatment  of 
"La  Princesse  Maleine."  But  we  are  re- 
lieved in  the  pale  picture  of  femininity  by 

*" Alladine  et  Palomides,"  illustrated  by  Georges 
Minne,  was  published  in  Brussels,  1894  (Collection 
du  Reveil;  ed.,  Deman).  See  Alfred  Sutro's  intro- 
duction to  this  play  when  published  in  London.  The 
American  Academy  of  Dramatic  Art  gave  a  per- 
formance of  the  play  on  Feb.  18,  1896.  Consult 
Symons's  "An  Apology  for  Puppets,"  in  "Plays,  Act- 
ing, and  Music." 

190 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

the  stronger  outlines  of  Astolaine.  This 
Princess  is  the  one  forsaken  by  the  Prince 
when  he  has  glimpses  of  Alladine  from 
Arcady — a  child  as  innocent  as  the  lamb 
that  follows  her,  but  who  has  within  her 
all  the  fervor  of  a  love  born  of  she  knows 
not  what.  The  old  King  Ablamore  loves 
Alladine,  for  "years  do  not  separate 
hearts ;"  besides  which,  he  is  intent  on  hav- 
ing Palomides — a  man  of  the  outward  pat- 
tern of  the  knight  in  "Soeur  Beatrice" — 
marry  Astolaine.  But  when  the  latter 
hears  that  the  Prince,  without  much  rea- 
son, has  forsaken  her  to  satisfy  the  primi- 
tive call  of  his  undeveloped  being,  she  ex- 
erts her  efforts  in  the  cause  of  these  two 
inconsequent  lovers  whom  King  Abla- 
more, broken  in  mind,  pursues  with  deter- 
mination to  punish  profoundly.  Maeter- 
linck knows  but  one  way  to  punish;  he 
thrusts  his  characters  in  dark  vaults,  stag- 
nant and  drear,  approached  by  halls  end- 
191 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

less  in  length,  and  bounded  by  doors  lead- 
ing to  unknown  depths. 

The  vaults  under  Ablamore's  castle, 
which  itself  is  built  in  gloomy  lands,  are  se- 
lected as  the  place  of  torture  for  Alladine 
and  Palomides.  Here  they  are  brought, 
bound  and  blindfolded;  here  they  strug- 
gle, in  darkness  and  in  tantalizing  light, 
unmindful  of  what  may  happen  to  them  at 
the  slightest  moment — a  scene  aiming  to 
be  as  cumulatively  breathless  as  Poe's 
"The  Pit  and  the  Pendulum."  And  just  as 
Astolaine  and  the  Seven  Sisters  of  Palom- 
ides come  to  rescue  them,  the  two  lovers 
are  hurled  backward  into  a  moat  in 
which  Alladine' s  pet  lamb  had  already  met 
its  death. 

But  they  are  rescued,  only  to  be  locked 
in  separate  rooms  by  Ablamore,  who  holds 
the  keys.  While  the  old  King  slumbers, 
these  keys  are  taken  from  his  palsied 
hands,  and  Astolaine  goes  with  the  Seven 
Sisters  of  Palomides  to  ferret  out  the  mys- 
192 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

tery.  The  Prince  and  the  Maid  from  Ar- 
cady,  while  not  dead,  are  on  the  verge  of 
death.  They  call  faintly  to  each  other, 
and  their  words  of  love  grow  fainter  with 
each  call.  Then,  as  in  "L'Intruse,"  a 
nurse  comes  to  each  door  and  makes  the 
sign  of  death. 

The  attitude  of  Astolaine  represents 
Maeterlinck's  philosophical  attitude  at  the 
time.  She  says,  "I  can  breathe  with  less 
disquietude,  being  no  longer  happy."  Un- 
doubtedly, the  reader's  sympathy  is  all 
centred  upon  this  forsaken  Princess  who 
suffers  silently  and  acts  with  generous 
spirit — the  first  real  initiative  in  Maeter- 
linck's puppet  plays.  The  dramatist's  own 
voice  rings  throughout  the  dialogue.  In 
his  romantic  conceptions,  he  never  allows 
his  characters  to  assume  color  of  their 
own;  he  places  them  in  his  atmosphere, 
he  presents  them  with  his  beliefs,  no  bet- 
ter measured  than  in  Ablamore's  opinion 
that  "words  have  no  sense  when  souls  are 
193 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

not  within  reach  of  each  other;"  he  places 
them  always  in  dark  setting  so  that  their 
slimness,  their  whiteness  may  the  better  be 
accentuated.  It  is  a  brooding  sense — a 
shudder  that  is  not  healthy  and  that 
Maeterlinck  soon  outgrew. 

Let  us  take  for  granted  that  Maeter- 
linck created  this  new  shudder,  even  as 
Baudelaire  created  a  new  shudder.  But  he 
makes  such  repeated  use  of  his  gray  tones 
that  the  mind  becomes  dulled.  To  read 
his  marionette  dramas  in  succession  is  like 
looking  at  canvases  that  deal  with  the 
same  colors,  and  variations  of  the  same 
theme.  Maeterlinck  irritates  by  reason 
of  his  monotony  of  psychology;  he  tires  by 
the  very  puppet  character  of  his  men  and 
women. 

Examine  "L'lnterieur"  (1894),*  the  re- 
verse of  "L'Intruse."  Two  men  outside  a 

*This  play  was  first  presented  at  the  Theatre  de 
L'CEuvre  in  March.  1895.  by  Lugne-Poe.  See  I.  Zang- 
ivill,  Critic,  26:  451-53,  June  22,  1895. 

194 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

house  look  within  the  living-room,  where  a 
family  is  gathered  in  happiness,  unmind- 
ful of  approaching  disaster.  These  two 
men  have  tidings  that  a  daughter  of  yon- 
der mother  and  father  has  just  been 
drowned;  in  fact  they  are  sent  ahead  of  the 
tragic  processional  to  give  warning  of  its 
approach.  Here  then  are  forces  at  work 
— inevitable  doom  of  a  truth  that  no  hesi- 
tation, no  warding  off  can  check.  The 
fact  is  imminent  and  the  girl  is  dead.  But 
these  two  men  hesitate;  they  plan  how  to 
break  the  news,  they  fear  the  silence  that 
follows  "the  last  words  that  announce 
woe."  The  picture  is  simple;  it  is  some- 
what Flemish;  there  are  masterly  strokes 
telling  how  the  girl  was  drowned,  grue- 
some as  well  as  masterly.  Yet  those  peo- 
ple through  the  window,  living  ordinary 
lives,  are  unconscious  of  what  forces  gov- 
ern them.  "Man  understands  only  when 
it  is  too  late."  Then  a  granddaughter  of 
the  old  man  elected  to  break  the  news,  ar- 
195 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

rives  to  find  the  news  still  withheld.  There 
is  no  time  to  lose;  the  party  is  only  a  few 
steps  away;  one  is  made  to  feel  the  dimin- 
ishing distance  between  life  and  death, 
between  happiness  and  woe.  Pity  has  no 
power  to  stay  woe.  The  old  man  before 
he  goes,  sees  finally  the  happy  family  his 
news  will  serve  to  crush.  "I  am 
nearly  eighty-three  years  old,"  he  cries, 
"and  this  is  the  first  time  the  sight  of  life 
has  struck  me."  Then  he  departs,  and 
through  the  windows  those  left  behind  see 
in  pantomime  the  whole  progress  of  the 
realizing  sorrow. 

Maeterlinck  gains  effect  in  the  same 
way  that  he  made  us  feel  the  Intruder: 
there  is  a  restless  observation  which  is 
poignant  in  its  lingering  on  detail,  and 
against  the  ruthless  approach  of  sorrow 
and  terror  he  places  the  innocence  of  the 
grandchildren  of  the  old  man,  and  the 
quiet  domesticity  of  the  home.  Here  he 
has  a  keen  exemplification  of  quotidian 
196 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

happenings  in  the  midst  of  eternal  verities. 
"La  Mort  de  Tintagiles"  (1894)*  is  a 
typical  picture  of  Maeterlinck's  proneness 
to  set  the  lyrical  amidst  black  rivers  of 
fright.  It  tells  the  story  of  a  small  boy, 
heir  to  a  throne  which  a  brutal  woman 
covets.  This  woman  is  never  seen,  but 
her  acts  are  dire  and  swift  and  unerring. 
She  has  cleared  her  path  of  all  obstacles 
save  this  one  tender  stalk.  At  last  she 
brings  him  to  the  dark  and  dank  castle, 
which  is  all  in  shadow  save  the  tower  in 
which  she  dwells.  The  boy  is  protected 
by  his  sisters,  Ygralne  and  Bellangere,  but 
not  so  well  guarded  that  he  cannot  be 
snatched  from  them  while  they  sleep.  He 
is  followed  by  Ygraine,  who  at  last  reaches 
an  iron  door  from  behind  which  the  boy 
calls  to  her  in  frenzied  terror.  But  though 

*Played  by  the  London  Stage  Society,  London, 
1899-1900;  by  the  Sezessionsbiihne,  Berlin,  Nov.  12, 
1900.  See  the  Athenaum,  1 :  794-95,  June  24,  1899. 
Charles  Martin  Loeffler  has  set  the  piece  to  music 
(Schirmer). 

197 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

she  beat  and  tear  the  panels,  and  cry  aloud 
for  pity,  she  only  hears  the  approach  of 
doom  for  the  small  fellow,  whose  shrieks 
grow  fainter  and  fainter,  and  finally  fade 
into  that  silence  which  proclaims  the 
futility  of  grief  and  the  powerlessness  of 
love  to  save  the  body.  It  is  an  effortless 
piece  of  cruelty,  graded  in  masterly  fash- 
ion. 

The  great  flaw  in  Maeterlinck's  theories 
regarding  puppets  is  that  he  did  not  real- 
ize that  however  much  his  dramas  might 
abhor  an  actor,  and  however  much  his  tech- 
nical demands  might  debar  them  from 
practical  consideration  at  the  theatre,  the 
mind  of  the  reader,  through  poetic  and 
vivid  suggestiveness,  is  able  to  supply  just 
those  stage  accessories  which  Maeterlinck 
claims  his  plays  could  do  without.  But  in- 
asmuch as  our  audiences  of  the  present 
have  no  willingness  to  exert  intellectual 
effort  at  the  theatre,  they  demand  an  ex- 
ternal action  which  is  not  only  legitimate 
198 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

but  characteristic  of  the  theatre.  Action 
is  the  distinguishing  line  between  pictorial 
or  plastic  art,  and  drama.  Character 
has  to  assert  itself  on  the  stage.  That 
Maeterlinck  created  a  peculiar  atmos- 
phere is  not  to  be  denied;  that  he  made 
one  feel  the  imminent  presence  of  the  un- 
known is  likewise  true.  But  whereas  in 
Greek  drama  the  submission  to  fate  was 
majestic  and  the  picturing  of  wild  frenzy 
relentless,  in  Maeterlinck  the  puppet  re- 
sponse of  these  marionette  characters 
made  them  oftentimes  puerile.  There  was 
truth  in  his  theory  of  static  drama,  there 
was  truth  in  his  acknowledgment  of  the 
forces  of  life  as  protagonists,  but  his  peo- 
ple were  all  spineless.  The  next  step  in  his 
dramatic  theory  resulted  in  his  use  of  that 
factor  which  was  to  turn  his  spectres  into 
living  flesh  and  blood.  I  mean  his  philo- 
sophical acceptance  of  will  as  above  des- 
tiny, where  human  character  is  concerned. 


199 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE    ETERNAL    FEMININE    AND    MAETER- 
LINCK'S  LATER  PLAYS 


"With  reverence  must  we  draw  near  to 
them  [women],  be  they  lowly  or  arrogant, 
inattentive  or  lost  in  dreams,  be  they  smi- 
ling still  or  plunged  in  tears;  for  they 
know  the  things  that  we  do  not  know,  and 
have  a  lamp  that  we  have  lost.  Their 
abiding-place  is  at  the  foot  itself  of  the 
Inevitable,  whose  well-worn  paths  are  visi- 
ble to  them  more  clearly  than  to  us.  And 
thence  it  is  that  their  strange  intuitions 
have  come  to  them,  their  gravity  at  which 
we  wonder;  and  we  feel  that,  even  in  their 
most  trifling  actions,  they  are  conscious  of 
being  upheld  by  the  strong,  unerring  hands 
of  the  gods.  I  said  before  that  they  drew 
us  nearer  to  the  gates  of  our  beings;  verily 
might  we  believe,  when  we  are  with  them, 
that  that  primeval  gate  is  obening,  amidst 
the  bewildering  whisper  that  doubtless 
waited  on  the  birth  of  things,  then  when 
speech  was  yet  hushed,  for  fear  lest  com- 
mand or  forbidding  should  issue  forth,  un- 
heard. .  .  ." — Maurice  Maeterlinck. 

201 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

I 

MAETERLINCK'S  attitude  of  mind 
is  one  of  infinite  courtesy;  he  is  never 
self-assertive,  he  is  never  over-positive,  he 
is  always  calm.  He  is  keenly  alive  to  the 
spiritual  side  of  all  things,  and  he  converts 
progress  into  terms  of  invisible  forces.  He 
is  a  man  of  many  interests,  but  he  views 
these  interests  from  the  same  angle,  and 
gives  them  the  same  mystic  and  ideal  tex- 
ture. He  begins  probably  with  an  his- 
torical, a  sociological,  a  scientific  fact,  and 
he  refines  to  such  a  degree  that  this  fact 
takes  on  qualities  never  seen  before.  He 
is  always  searching  in  that  infinite  space 
where  lies  the  secret  which  may  stand  re- 
vealed at  any  moment;  he  is  always  scaling 
that  height  to  which  the  average  person 
never  attains,  and  he  expects  to  be  follow- 
ed with  no  demur.  The  only  requisites  he 
demands  are  a  clean  heart,  a  clear  mind, 
and  an  open  soul.  In  this,  Maeterlinck 
202 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

may  be  likened  to  King  Arthur — Tenny- 
son's King  Arthur  whose  counsel  was  al- 
ways to  "live  pure,  speak  true,  right 
wrongs." 

Inasmuch  as  he  possesses  this  courtesy, 
Maeterlinck  is  a  man  of  deference;  in 
every  direction  he  takes  that  infinite  pains 
to  understand,  which  proclaims  him  intel- 
lectually modest.  He  is  a  man  of  enthusi- 
asm, but  here  again  he  is  tempered,  not  by 
an  overburdening  of  intellectual  question- 
ing or  doubt,  but  by  a  prophetic  vision.  He 
took  from  Shakespeare  much  of  his  ro- 
mantic glow;  he  even  took  some  of  his 
situations  and  motives,  but  he  transmuted 
them  into  spiritual  essence.  And  in  Shake- 
speare, when  he  analyzed  "Macbeth" 
and  "King  Lear,"  he  saw  only  those  qual- 
ities which  Charles  Lamb  considered  far 
beyond  the  province  of  the  stage. 

Maeterlinck  took  from  Emerson  and  a 
long  line  of  mystics,  but  though  Emerson 
was  his  greatest  influence,  he  transmuted 
203 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

the  transcendentalism  of  the  New  Eng- 
land school  into  an  even  finer  and  more 
abstract  and  more  universal  philosophy — 
one  that  possessed  no  note  of  democracy 
in  it,  though  open  to  all  who  had  awaken- 
ed souls.  Maeterlinck  acknowledged  the 
individual,  the  scholar,  the  citizen  of  self- 
trust, — but  he  placed  the  inner  life  of  man 
above  the  democratic  expression  of  the 
individual;  he  believed,  as  in  "Wisdom 
and  Destiny,"  that  "the  inner  life  begins 
when  the  soul  becomes  good,  and  not 
when  the  intellect  ripens."  Therefore,  he 
does  more  than  proclaim  that  the  soul  is 
master,  for  he  shows  wherein  the  soul  may 
develop  to  its  fullest  powers. 

Maeterlinck  is  a  man  of  deference  to- 
ward women,  and  from  the  moment  that 
he  first  saw  Madame  Maeterlinck  (Geor- 
gette Leblanc) ,  his  star  became  certain  and 
luminous,  and  he  set  out  to  measure  the 
extent  of  love  in  well-rounded,  full,  vi- 
brant, and  rich  tones.  His  marionettes 
204 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

ceased  being  puppets,  and  took  on  the 
wholesome  quality  of  living  persons.  Thus 
far,  Madame  Maeterlinck  has  been  his 
greatest  influence — undoubtedly  for  good, 
and  now  and  again  for  bad.  An  actress 
of  some  pronounced  reputation,  she  her- 
self has  had  speculative  ideas  regarding 
art,  carrying  the  dramatic  interpretation 
of  song  and  dance  to  great  perfection.  She 
has  advanced  even  further,  giving  those 
performances  at  Saint-Wandrille  to  illus- 
trate how  much  is  lost  in  not  being  able  to 
bring  acting  up  to  the  same  largeness  and 
freedom  as  life  by  offering  to  the  actor  the 
freedom  of  space  beyond  the  limits  of  a 
stage.  But  somehow  her  enthusiasm 
blinded  her  to  the  fact  that  one  of  the  dif- 
ferences between  the  theatre  and  life  is 
that  in  the  theatre  people  are  brought  to- 
gether on  purpose  to  see  the  unfolding  of 
events,  and  that  just  so  soon  as  drama  is 
carried  beyond  the  proscenium  arch,  the 
audience  has  to  travel  with  it. 
205 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

As  an  experiment  that  is  interesting;  yet 
it  is  not  practicable  as  far  as  the  theatre  is 
concerned.  It  represents  an  artistic  whim 
furthered  by  the  mediaeval  atmosphere  of 
the  Norman  Abbey  itself.  Madame  Mae- 
terlinck is  responsible  for  Saint-Wan- 
drille;* it  was  she  who  expressed  a  desire 
for  such  a  home,  when  she  first  saw  the 
place,  amidst  its  thirty-five  acres  of  dense 
woods  and  moist,  cool  grounds.  They 
were  automobiling  at  the  time,  mayhap 
from  their  former  country  place  in  the 
hamlet  of  Gruchet-St.-Simon,  near  Dieppe. 
Living  in  the  heart  of  such  an  ancient  pile, 
with  its  eleventh  century  chapel,  its  crypts 
of  the  thirteenth  century,  its  twelfth  cen- 
tury refectory,  and  its  fourteenth  century 
cloister,  it  was  small  wonder  that  Madame 
Maeterlinck  saw  enacted  therein  the  entire 

*See  Harry's  description  of  Saint-Wandrille  in 
Petit  Bleu  (Brussels),  Sept.  28,  29,  1907;  March  22, 
23,  24,  1908.  Also  Esperancc-Hyacinthe  Langlois's 
"L'Abbaye  de  Fontenelle  ou  de  Saint-Wandrille" 
(Paris,  1827). 

206 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

melodrama  of  "Macbeth,"  it  was  natural 
that  she  saw  Melisande  wandering  through 
the  shadowed  halls.  Such  a  place  invited 
largeness  of  imagination,  but  as  far  as  in- 
viting the  maintenance  of  an  extensive 
household,  the  Abbey  of  Saint-Wandrille 
reckoned  without  its  host.  For,  to  repeat, 
though  in  former  times  it  had  sheltered 
four  hundred  Benedictines,  it  now  holds 
every  season  t>nly  Maeterlinck  and  his 
wife,  with  a  secretary  and  three  servants. 

Here  Maeterlinck  has  everything  to 
please  his  love  of  solitude;  he  has  his 
study,  with  windows  overlooking  far 
stretches  of  woods,  he  has  his  stream  for 
fishing,  he  has  everything  but  his  bees.  For 
the  hive  demands  attention,  and  inasmuch 
as  he  does  not  live  at  Saint-Wandrille  in 
winter  time,  he  has  abandoned  that  inter- 
est at  the  Abbey. 

It  is  said  that  Madame  Maeterlinck  is 
profound  in  her  knowledge  of  psychology 
and  occultism;  that  she  practices  crystal- 
207 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

gazing.  These  studies  are  in  direct  accord 
with  the  tastes  of  her  husband,  and  the 
bond  between  the  two  has  strengthened 
year  by  year.  The  consequence  is  that  in 
the  development  of  the  feminism  of  Mae- 
terlinck, his  wife  has  been  his  greatest  in- 
terpreter— first,  in  the  way  of  analysis,  and 
second  in  the  matter  of  acting.  No  biog- 
rapher can  dispense  with  the  keen  insight 
of  Georgette  Leblanc,*  who  has  dissected 
so  unerringly  "The  Later  Heroines  of 
Maurice  Maeterlinck,"  and  who  has  so 
charmingly  described  the  manner  in  which 
Maeterlinck  accomplished  his  translation 
of  "Macbeth."  There  is  an  emotionalism 
in  her  writing  which  proclaims  the  artistic 
sensitiveness  of  the  woman.  But  wher- 
ever Madame  Maeterlinck's  activity  finds 
expression  in  print,  one  is  enabled  to  see 
how  far  she  has  been  influenced  by  Mae- 
terlinck himself — how  far  she  has  in  turn 

*See  "In  Madame  Bovary*s  Country,"  by  Georgette 
Leblanc  Maeterlinck,  Fortn.,  91 :  862-75. 

208 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

influenced  him.  For,  beginning  with  "Ag- 
lavaine  et  Selysette,"  the  author  of  Ma- 
leine  and  Melisande  took  on  new  power. 

And  this  new  power  came  through  the 
deepening  reverence  for  women,  as  typi- 
fied in  Madame  Maeterlinck.  Is  there 
any  direct  reference  in  his  essays  to  his 
wife?  I  think  it  is  very  evident  that  she  is 
the  original  for  the  "Portrait  of  a  Lady" 
in  "The  Double  Garden."  Maeterlinck, 
the  philosopher,  becomes  blended  with 
Maeterlinck,  the  lover,  who  realizes  that 
it  is  not  enough  for  husband  and  wife  to 
be  virile  friends,  equal  comrades,  and  deep- 
est companions  of  life.  The  forces  of  exist- 
ence so  act  upon  a  woman's  soul  as  to  keep 
her  always  the  perfect  flower,  even  when 
she  is  struggling,  and  "with  all  her  strength 
resisting  an  unjust  feeling." 

Pure  idealism  surrounds  her  as  it  sur- 
rounds all  things  in  life.     Still  there  is  a 
rift  in  the  calmness  of  perfection,  and  it 
is  in  that  rift  there  lies  the  new  humanity 
209 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

of  Maurice  Maeterlinck.  He  writes:  "She 
has,  therefore,  by  way  of  an  adornment, 
all  the  passions  and  all  the  weaknesses  of 
womankind;  and,  thanks  to  the  gods,  she 
does  not  present  that  still-born  perfection 
which  possesses  all  the  virtues  without 
being  vivified  by  a  single  fault."  Then 
follows  the  generalization  in  Maeterlinck 
which  would  change  all  evil  into  good  by 
the  power  which  tends  to  uplift,  as  the 
natural  inclination  of  the  soul.  He  says: 
"A  virtue  is  but  a  vice  that  raises  instead 
of  lowering  itself." 

Therefore,  in  this  rift  he  places  all  the 
human  expressions  that  result  in  woman's 
outward  beauty,  in  her  "innocent  vanities"  ; 
these  are  innocent  only  in  so  far  as  they  do 
the  soul  no  harm.  Maeterlinck's  idea  of 
woman  is  perhaps  more  quiescent  than 
these  modern  times  care  for.  Her  chas- 
tity, in  his  eyes,  is  largely  due  to  her  nega- 
tive qualities,  to  her  inertness;  for  does  he 
not  say  that  she  is  "a  tissue  of  vices  quies- 
210 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

cent?"  If  she  is  "just  because  she  does 
not  act,"  then  her  morality  is  one  of  sleep, 
and  between  Maeterlinck's  ideal  and 
"Monna  Vanna"  there  is  a  wide  stream, 
for  Vanna  does  act,  and  attains  the  high- 
est moral  position.  In  this  "Portrait  of  a 
Lady"  we  have  his  doubt  again  expressed 
as  to  which  is  preferable,  the  "active  or  the 
passive  life."  For  in  his  search  after  the 
depths  of  truth,  he  has  found,  to  his  own 
understanding,  that  women  are  nearer  to 
God  than  men,  and  that  "they  lead  us  close 
to  the  gates  of  our  being."  This  they  do, 
"above  the  earth-level  of  our  intellect" — 
by  means  of  that  divine  instinct  which  we 
claim  that  they  alone  possess. 

Maeterlinck's  conception  of  the  femi- 
nine is  full  of  chivalry;  in  it  there  is  the 
modern  note,  but  social  and  economic  de- 
mands are  transmuted  into  life  forces 
which  rivet  the  attention  upon  the  char- 
acter of  this  change  befalling  women,  and 
upon  the  moral  significance  of  their  posi- 
211 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

tion.  "Woman  has  so  long  lived  kneeling 
in  the  shadow  that  our  prejudiced  eyes  find 
it  difficult  to  seize  the  harmony  of  the  first 
movements  which  she  risks  when  rising  to 
her  feet  in  the  light  of  day."  This  pre- 
pares us  for  his  opinion  of  women  in  "The 
Arabian  Nights,"*  an  idea  which  occurred 
to  him  while  reading  a  translation  by  Dr. 
Mardrus.  After  noting  their  slavery, 
which  consisted  of  wisdom  and  beauty  be- 
ing bartered  for  the  merest  trifle;  after 
noting  how  kings,  wise  and  just,  tired  of 
their  loves  and  threw  them  off  with  no  con- 
cern whatsoever;  after  realizing  that  these 
women,  so  lofty  in  their  concepts  of  jus- 
tice and  of  morality,  bowed  without  protest 
to  their  fate,  Maeterlinck  then  challenges 
the  present  which  marvels  at  such  social 
degradation.  "We  who  also  reflect  on 
justice  and  virtue,  on  pity  and  love — are 
we  so  sure  that  they  who  come  after  us 
shall  not  some  day  find,  in  our  present  so- 

*Indepcndent,  Jan.  3,  1901. 
212 


Maurice  MaeterlincK 

cial  condition,  a  spectacle  equally  discon- 
certing and  amazing?" 

Put  into  poetry,  Maeterlinck's  concep- 
tion of  women  would  correspond  to  Mat- 
thew Arnold's  concept  in  "The  Future:" 

"What  girl 

Now  reads  in  her  bosom  as  clear 

As   Rebekah  read,   when   she   sate 

At  eve  by  the  palm-shaded  well? 

Who  guards  in  her  breast 

As  deep,  as  pellucid  a  spring 

Of  feeling,   as  tranquil,   as   sure?" 

For  in  his  claim*  that  woman's  certi- 
tude lies  wholly  in  the  first  look  of  love,  is 
found  Maeterlinck's  highest  pinnacle  of 
reverence  and  worship.  Women  struggle 
to  fling  from  them  any  disillusionment  of 
that  first  glance,  and  we  are  nearer  truth 
than  we  realize  when  we  reach  that  point 
where  we  can  accept  with  a  full  heart  Mae- 
terlinck's mandate:  "You  are  more  truly 
that  which  you  are  in  her  eyes  than  that 
which  in  your  soul  you  believe  yourself  to 
be." 

*See    "On   Women"   in   "The   Treasure   of   the 
Humble." 

213 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

Maeterlinck's  interest  in  women,  there- 
fore, is  from  an  angle  totally  different  from 
that  of  Ibsen;  it  is  all  instinct  and  the  ex- 
ercise of  certain  mystic  powers  that  char- 
acterize them.  And  if  he  deals  with  them 
under  the  impetus  of  passion,  he  trans- 
mutes that  passion  into  a  chastity  which  is 
pure  and  strong.  His  knowledge  of  sex 
takes  on  a  nobleness,  a  poetic  ecstasy  which 
Ibsen  failed  to  realize.  Yet  Ibsen's  femin- 
ism is  more  impelling. 

Maeterlinck's  feminism  undoubtedly 
comes  from  his  conviction  that  "women 
are  indeed  the  veiled  sisters  of  all  the  great 
things  we  do  not  see";  the  sources  of  their 
being  are  to  him  as  pure  as  ever  the  soul 
can  hope  to  be.  Women  are  the  preserv- 
ers of  the  real  fragrance  of  the  soul,  they 
are  the  true  disciples  of  the  mystic  sense. 

Madame  Maeterlinck  is  more  full- 
blooded  than  this  ideal  reverence  would 
indicate;  she  is  the  physical  type  that  age 
will  not  easily  destroy.  Her  stimulation 
214 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

has  carried  Maeterlinck  through  the  shad- 
ow into  light;  so  much  so  as  to  enable 
him  to  write  of  Aglavaine:  "She  brought 
to  me  a  new  atmosphere,  a  will  to  happi- 
ness, a  power  of  hope.  If  she  does  not  at 
once  triumph  over  the  fatality  which  still 
weighs  upon  little  Selysette,  at  least  she 
sheds  light  on  it,  and  henceforth  her  light 
will  direct  my  researches  in  a  serene  and 
happy  and  consoling  course." 

In  other  words,  Maeterlinck  was  waked 
up;  he  began  to  see  the  futility  of  allowing 
disaster  to  fade  out  character;  he  made  dis- 
aster one  of  the  reasons  for  the  develop- 
ment of  character,  giving  his  dramatis  per- 
sona for  the  first  time  the  inclination  to 
oppose  heredity,  to  exert  will,  and  to  di- 
rect destiny.  Madame  Maeterlinck  sepa- 
rates the  heroines  of  these  plays  into  three 
groups — first,  the  unconscious  princesses, 
whose  characters  never  develop  beneath 
the  fatalistic  powers  of  life,  but  display 
every  form  of  submission;  second,  those 
215 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

who  for  the  first  time  become  conscious 
of  will,  yet  are  weak  in  the  use  of  it;  and 
third,  those  who  exert  will  to  modify 
events,  thus  bringing  disaster. 

Madame  Maeterlinck  writes:  "The  in- 
tellects [in  this  third  period]  fight  against 
'the  human  errors  and  wishes,'  as  we  shall 
now  name  what  before  we  called  'the  fatal 
powers,'  and  this  change  is  brought  about 
by  the  very  intellects  which  we  propose  to 
study.  Behold  reason  intervening."  The 
value  of  a  woman's  analysis  of  these  tap- 
estry women  lies  in  the  personal  relations 
existing  between  Maeterlinck  and  his  wife. 
She  may  have  arrived  at  conclusions  some- 
what similar  had  she  not  had  him  to  ana- 
lyse the  motives  with  her.  But,  we  may 
regard  her  writing  on  the  subject  as  partly 
reflecting  her  husband's  own  attitude  and 
his  own  method  of  analysis.  What  her 
contribution  to  the  new  period  was  to  be 
in  the  way  of  influence  of  Maeterlinck  may 
well  be  measured  by  her  declaration  that 
216 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

now  these  people  of  his  plays  "have  a  per- 
sonal character,  a  personal  morality,  a  will. 
It  matters  little  to  us,  when  we 
consider  them,  that  the  example  of  Agla- 
vaine  was  disastrous,  that  of  Monna  V an- 
na admirable,  that  of  Ardiane  useless. 
What  concerns  us  is  the  action  which  they 
performed  and  the  will  whence  it  sprang." 
Therefore,  in  "Aglavaine  et  Selysette" 
we  reach  the  parting  of  the  ways ;  the  latter 
belongs  to  the  pale  type  of  the  marionette 
plays,  but  she  is  willing,  for  love,  to  sacri- 
fice herself.  In  the  case  of  Aglavaine,  the 
will  struggles  with  the  flesh  in  order  to  do 
the  right  thing.  Hence,  this  heroine  be- 
comes the  incentive  for  Ardiane  and  Joy- 
zelle.  Maeterlinck  in  fact  is  now  com- 
pletely won  over  to  the  philosophy  of  hap- 
piness— a  philosophy  maintained  largely 
by  the  will  to  love.  "Joyzelle"  proves 
this;  so  does  "The  Blue  Bird." 

This  analysis  of  Madame  Maeterlinck 
is  quite   remarkable;  it  contains  a  little 
217 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

strain  of  relief  that  her  husband  has  reach- 
ed the  point  where  mystic  atmosphere 
alone  is  incapable  of  raising  his  women 
above  ordinary  life.  She  detects  his  desire 
to  have  such  a  character  as  Monna  Vanna 
prepared  in  intelligence  and  in  moral  fibre 
to  meet  the  event  she  has  to  face.  And  so 
to  this  woman  of  full-blooded  interest, 
Maeterlinck's  new  feminine  types,  found 
in  Aglavaine,  Joyzelle,  Monna  Vanna,  and 
Ardiane,  speak,  as  she  writes,  in  this  man- 
ner: 

"We  are  not  gentler,  nor  better,  nor 
more  loving  than  our  sisters  in  the  past;  but 
our  goodness  is  subject  to  different  laws. 
Our  love  is  no  less  tender,  but  it  is  built  on 
more  durable  foundations.  We  are  not 
greater,  but  less  accessible;  not  haughtier, 
but  less  shy.  We  know  how  to  break  the 
bonds  which  chance  fastens  round  our  cra- 
dles; we  no  longer  consent  to  accept  the 
weight  of  the  fatalities  wherewith  men  are 
218 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

pleased  to  burden  us.  ...  Our  virtue  . 
lies  wholly  in  the  thanklessness  of 
our  task;  for  we  are  rarely  loved.  .  .  . 
To  hasten  our  work,  would  that  men 
might  understand  us  a  little  better,  fear  us 
a  little  less.  Let  them  learn  at  last  that 
since  centuries  and  throughout  the  ages, 
there  has  been  but  one  divine  woman, 
lover,  mother,  and  sister !  If,  at  the  pres- 
ent moment,  we  appear  different  or  rebel- 
lious, it  is  only  so  that  we  may  one  day 
offer  them  stronger  companions  and  near- 
er to  perfection!"  Yet  "Ardiane  et  Barbe- 
Bleue"  was  used  as  a  suffragette  plea  in 
England  not  long  ago ! 

II 

Of   "Aglavaine    et    Selysette,*    J.   W. 

*"Aglavaine  et  Selysette"  was  first  published  in 
1896  (Paris:  Societe  du  Mercure  de  France);  the 
translation  into  English  by  Alfred  Sutro  (Richards) 
contains  an  introduction  by  J.  W.  Mackail;  reviewed 
in  Westminster  Rev.,  April,  1899,  151 :  409-16;  Fortn., 
Aug.,  1897,  68:  185-86  (V.  M.  Crawford) ;  and  Lm. 
Age,  235:  193.  In  1901,  1902,  the  Theatre  de  Mau- 
rice Maeterlinck  was  issued  in  three  volumes  (Brus- 
sels, P.  Lacomblez) ;  reviewed  in  the  Athenaum,  1902, 
i :  554-55- 

219 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

Mackail  says  that  there  are  really  only 
two  actors  in  the  little  drama,  even  though 
the  directions  call  for  five.  It  is  a  duologue, 
during  which  the  souls  of  two  types  of 
women  develop.  They  have  been  fore- 
shadowed in  "Alladine  et  Palomides." 
Meligrane,  the  grandame,  is  only  a  means 
toward  an  end — the  end  of  wonderment 
and  suspense;  little  Yssaline,  Selysette's 
sister,  is  a  continuation  of  the  innocence  of 
Yniold,  and  is  simply  an  accompaniment, 
to  serve  as  contrast  with  the  awakening  of 
Selysette;  Meleander  is  the  romantic 
youth,  against  whom  these  women  strug- 
gle for  the  full  realization  of  their  love. 
And  even  though  the  play  meets  with  dis- 
astrous conclusions,  this  is  the  first  of  Mae- 
terlinck's where  there  is  an  agreeableness 
of  association;  it  is  likewise  the  first  that 
has  a  thesis  strong  enough  to  admit  of 
philosophical  argument — an  argument 
which  detracts  from  the  dramatic  action  of 
the  whole.  Where,  in  the  marionette 
220 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

pieces,  we  now  and  again  obtain  stray  bits 
of  belief,  here  we  have  long  passages  re- 
vealing an  inner  beauty  and  an  inner  qual- 
ity of  soul,  responsive  to  influence  and 
growth  as  the  body  is  responsive. 

Meleander  and  Selysette  are  one  at 
the  moment  when  Aglavaine  is  to  arrive — 
Aglavaine,  a  sister  to  Selysette  by  law.  She 
is  now  a  widow,  one  who  having  tasted 
deep  of  the  waters  of  unhappiness,  is  best 
able  to  give  forth  love.  At  the  very  outset 
we  see  the  tragedy  in  store  for  Selysette, 
we  even  sense  the  motive  of  the  tower. 
It  is  likewise  made  evident  'that  Agla- 
vaine's  beauty  is  manifold,  that  it  engen- 
ders truth,  and  that  by  the  side  of  it  Sely- 
sette's  beauty  is  more  of  the  spirit,  more 
mystic,  more  intangible.  This  contrast 
makes  Meleander  hope  that  Aglavaine's 
arrival  will  incite  their  love  to  better  un- 
derstanding. 

But  life  under  such  conditions  is  won- 
derfully human,  and  before  ever  Agla- 
221 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

value  arrives,  Selysette's  eyes  are  opened 
and  the  woman  peeps  forth.  Then  the 
other  comes,  and  the  forces  of  destiny 
begin  their  work.  It  is  useless  to  explain 
minutely  the  situation  in  this  drama,  or 
even  the  symbolism,  for  as  Aglavaine  says 
of  Selysette's  key,  opening  the  door  to  the 
tower,  "A  key  is  the  most  beautiful  of  all 
things,  so  long  as  we  do  not  know  what  it 
unlocks."  But  simple  as  the  first  act  is,  we 
feel  the  subtle  presence  of  dangerous  re- 
lationships. Again  Aglavaine  declares: 
"We  have  uttered  the  little  timid  words 
that  strangers  speak  when  they  meet;  and 
yet,  who  can  tell  all  that  has  taken  place 
between  the  three  of  us?" 

Between  Meleander  and  Aglavaine, 
there  springs  up  the  dangerous  stream  that 
harbors  fear — the  fear  of  what  may  hap- 
pen. Yet  the  theory  of  love,  as  Aglavaine 
argues  it,  is  over  again  the  theory  of  pla- 
tonic  friendship;  the  three  in  this  tragic 
triangle  might  strive  "towards  the  love 
222 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

that  disdains  the  pettiness  of  love,"  and 
yet  be  swept  beyond  knowing.  They  must 
struggle,  these  two,  yet  they  bend  beneath 
the  weight  and  declare  their  love  for  each 
other.  Thus  they  are  discovered  by  Sely- 
sette. 

No  wonder  the  maid  smarts  beneath  the 
pity,  the  tender  attitude  of  these  two  to- 
ward her;  it  is  quite  natural  the  temptation 
Selysette  has  to  push  Aglavalne  into  a 
well,  by  the  side  of  which  she  is  found 
asleep.  Yet  forbearance  is  the  act  that 
seals  the  link  between  these  women — the 
strong  and  the  weak  or  inexperienced — 
both  of  them  uncertain  what  best  is  to  be 
done.  The  time  for  exercise  of  wisdom  is 
always  one  of  greatest  need. 

The  rest  of  the  play  is  an  analysis  of  a 
tremendous  love  motive  from  two  points 
of  view,  and  in  accord  with  the  natures  of 
two  types  of  women.  One  has  deep  knowl- 
edge, the  other  tender  ignorance,  and  be- 
tween these  extremes  the  play  fluctuates — 
223 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

from  jealousy  to  confidence,  from  distrust 
to  trust.  Poor  little  Selysette  awakens,  but 
her  soul  experiences  dire  pain  in  the 
growth.  And  as  Meligrane  says,  there  are 
only  two  solutions  for  sorrow  of  this  kind; 
"either  must  one  of  you  die  or  the  other 
go  away."  Aglavaine  overhears  this  and 
by  the  end  of  the  second  act  duty  stares 
both  women  in  the  face. 

The  analyses  of  love  are  not  easy  to 
follow  in  the  drama  sense;  we  only  know 
that  Aglavaine  is  more  capable  of  coping 
with  the  human  problem,  that  Selysette  is 
a  tender  flower  exerting  every  effort  to  un- 
derstand. We  here  get  a  glimpse  of 
Maeterlinck's  marionette  heroines  made 
conscious  of  duty,  and  we  reach  the  con- 
clusions that,  after  all,  Maleine  and  Meli- 
sande  and  Alladine  are  only  average  fem- 
inine humanity — perhaps  not  as  practical 
as  average  humanity,  but  just  as  blind 
when  it  comes  to  coping  with  the  higher 
forces  of  life.  Aglavaine's  realization  of 
224 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

Selysette's  struggle  compels  her  to  the 
conclusion  which  she  thus  states  to  Mele- 
ander:  "Were  I  to  linger  by  your  side  and 
cause  others  to  suffer,  I  should  no  longer 
be  what  you  are,  nor  would  you  be  what  I 
am,  and  our  love  would  no  longer  be  the 
same  as  our  love  of  to-day."  This  ideal 
attitude  finds  itself  again  expressed  in  the 
essays. 

It  is  dangerous  fire  that  Aglavaine  plays 
with,  a  fire  that  no  philosophical  conclu- 
sions can  quench.  She  decides  to  leave; 
Meleander  himself  agrees  that  it  is  best 
for  all  three.  But  it  is  too  late;  the  little 
soul  that  feels  itself  pushed  out  is  whirled 
toward  self-immolation.  The  tower  is  the 
means  of  solution — the  tower  around 
which  strange  birds  hover.  Death  waits 
for  Selysette  in  that  tower  where  there  are 
loose  stones  along  the  edge.  The  whole 
progress  of  this  tragedy  is  poignantly  de- 
scribed— a  lyrical  strain  of  suffering,  and 
when  Selysette  and  Yssaline  talk  with  the 
225 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

grandame,  Meligrane,  we  are  reminded  of 
a  scene  to  come  in  "The  Blue  Bird." 

The  love  motive  is  slightly  confused,  and 
therein  its  mystic  quality  may  be  maintain- 
ed. "We  bring  sorrow  to  all  those  we 
love,"  says  Selysette;  yet,  on  the  other 
hand,  Aglavaine  believes  that  "those  who 
love  must  live;  and  the  more  we  love,  the 
more  must  we  wish  to  live."  How  this 
little  figure,  battling  so  hard  to  know,  to 
understand,  is  tossed  to  and  fro,  with  dire 
questionings,  awakenings  too  boundless  for 
a  child  to  compass!  In  such  an  atmos- 
phere, it  were  natural  that  Selysette 
should  die,  sacrificing  one  type  of  love  for 
the  conquest  of  another. 

The  play  is  rather  indefinite  in  its  close, 
though  it  is  evident  why  Selysette  covers 
up  her  sacrifice,  crushed  by  her  fall  from 
the  tower.  There  is  tremendous  pathos 
in  the  overwhelming  love  of  different  kinds 
that  Maeterlinck  discusses.  There  is  a 
spiritual  beauty  that  is  earthly,  and  an 
226 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

earthly  beauty  that  is  spiritual,  and  the 
doctrinaire  quality  of  the  story  spoiled  it 
for  me  as  it  spoiled  it  for  James  Huneker, 
who  further  believes,  quite  rightly,  that 
"Aglavaine  is  the  mouthpiece  for  Maeter- 
linck in  his  'Treasure  of  the  Humble.' ' 
The  text  shows  that  Maeterlinck  has  turn- 
ed essayist. 

The  general  opinion  among  critics  seems 
to  be  that  "Aglavaine  et  Selysette"  is 
not  as  pure  a  piece  of  work  as  "Pelleas  et 
Melisande,"  but  I  think  it  excels  the  latter 
just  by  measure  of  its  philosophical  con- 
viction. Its  solution  is  difficult  to  hold  to, 
simply  because  the  fine  distinctions  of  mo- 
tives are  so  subtle.  Happiness  brings  pain, 
or  requires  pain  in  its  accomplishment;  it 
is  a  law  of  life  that  we  never  gain  without 
giving;  even  by  our  love  sometimes  we 
kill,  as  the  friendship  of  Aglavaine  eventu- 
ally kills  Selysette.  Ibsen's  Brand  asked 
all  or  nothing,  and  absolute  spiritual  con- 
sciousness means  pain,  even  annihilation. 
227 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

It  is  Emerson's  law  of  compensation  that 
Maeterlinck  suggests  in  "Aglavaine  et 
Selysette."*  This  ideal  love-talk  may  be 
way  beyond  the  accomplishment  of  mor- 
tal, but  by  it  neither  Aglavaine  nor  Mele- 
ander  is  blinded,  and  Selysette  to  the  very 
end  is  never  once  deceived.  This  is  a  play 
of  high  motives  theoretically  placed.f 

Maeterlinck  realized  the  change  taking 
place  in  him;  he  knew  that  there  was  a  new 
force  governing  his  characters.  It  was  his 
growth  in  philosophical  attitude  that  made 
him  supplant  death  upon  the  throne  by  the 
glorification  of  love.  The  preface  to  his 
"Theatre"  is  distinctive  because  of  the 
attempt  to  reconcile  the  unknown  with  the 

*For  further  analysis,  see  Georges  Leneveu,  "Ibsen 
et  Maeterlinck." 

tin  1901,  the  first  and  third  volumes  of  Maeter- 
linck's "Theatre"  were  published,  the  second  appear- 
ing in  1902.  It  is  well  to  remember  that  before  this, 
the  following  essays  appeared:  "Tresor  des 
Humbles"  (1896),  "La  Temple  Enseveli"  (1896), 
and  "La  Sagesse  et  la  Destinee"  (1898).  These 
volumes  intervening  between  the  plays  will  account 
for  the  philosophical  attitude  now  assumed  by  the 
dramatist. 

228 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

real  condition  of  drama.  So  he  wrote: 
"The  dramatic  poet  is  no  longer  able  to 
restrict  himself  to  generalities.  He  is  ob- 
liged to  come  in  touch  with  real  life,  with 
the  life  of  every  day,  with  the  idea  of  the 
unknown  to  which  he  is  accustomed.  He 
must  show  us  in  what  fashion,  under  what 
form,  in  what  conditions,  after  what  laws, 
to  what  end  all  the  superior  powers,  all  the 
unintelligible  influences,  the  infinite  prin- 
ciples, of  which  he  is  persuaded  the  uni- 
verse is  full,  act  upon  our  destinies."  So 
that  Maeterlinck,  among  other  poets,  finds 
himself  constrained  to  renounce  the  use  of 
sentiments  that  are  not  "human  in  their 
material  and  psychological  effects."  We 
therefore  realize  that  he  is  seeking  for  a 
third  empire,  such  as  is  so  eloquently  out- 
lined in  Ibsen's  "Emperor  and  Galilean." 
The  old  beauty  was  no  longer  beautiful. 

Maeterlinck's  next  plays  are  not  plays 
in  intention  or  in  execution;  in  fact  he 
would  oppose  any  effort  on  the  part  of  a 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

critic  to  find  in  them  any  great  thought, 
either  moral  or  philosophical.  "Properly 
speaking,"  he  writes,  "they  are  small 
'jeux  de  scene/  short  poems  of  a  kind  un- 
fortunately called  'opera-comique,'  des- 
tined to  furnish  to  the  musicians  who  might 
wish  it,  a  theme  suitable  to  lyrical  devel- 
opments." 

But,  despite  Maeterlinck's  simple  inten- 
tion, "Ardiane  et  Barbe-Bleue"*  has  been 
subject  to  extensive  discussion.  First,  the 
translator  experienced  difficulty  in  convert- 
ing "Sister  Beatrice"  and  "Ardiane"  from 
French  verse  into  English  equivalents. 
The  consequence  is  that  in  neither  piece  do 
we  obtain  any  of  the  beauty  of  the  original, 
though  the  effect  is  far  above  the  average 

*"Ardiane  et  Barbe-Bleue"  was  published  in  1901, 
and  was  set  to  music  by  Paul  Dukas.  It  was  first 
sung  and  acted  at  the  Opera-Comique  in  Paris  on 
May  10,  1907,  with  Georgette  Leblanc  as  Ardiane; 
and  at  the  New  York  Metropolitan  Opera  House  on 
March  29,  1911,  with  Geraldine  Farrar  in  the 
leading  role.  See  "Bluebeard  and  Aryan,"  S.  C.  de 
Soissons,  Fortn.  74:  994-97;  also  Liv.  Age,  228: 
130-33.  As  to  the  difficulties  of  versification,  see  the 
Translator's  Preface. 

230 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

opera  libretto.  Despite  Maeterlinck's 
strictures,  however,  we  believe  that  Ardi- 
ane  carries  his  feminism  a  step  further, 
and  introduces  a  satirical  element  which  is 
not  a  common  characteristic  in  any  of  his 
other  writings. 

There  is  much  in  "Ardiane  et  Barbe- 
Bleue"  also  to  connect  it  with  the  philo- 
sophical preachment  of  Ibsen  in  "The 
Lady  from  the  Sea,"  and  to  prepare  the 
way  for  "L'Oiseau  Bleu."  Undoubtedly, 
Maeterlinck  reverted  to  Charles  Perrault's 
fairy  tale  for  the  general  outline  of  his 
story — the  story  of  a  man  whose  existence 
in  French  history  was  as  real,  if  not  as 
prominent,  as  the  figure  of  Henry  VIII. 
Ardiane  stands  out  from  the  mass  of  wom- 
en as  a  being  who  demands  something 
more  than  the  slavery  with  which  Blue- 
beard's other  wives  are  satisfied.  While 
she  is  not  the  new  woman,  at  least  she  is  a 
woman  new  to  Maeterlinck. 

She  arrives  at  Bluebeard's  castle,  amidst 
231 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

the  warnings  of  a  rabble  outside;  she 
knows  all  that  they  might  says  of  his  cruel- 
ty; she  is  fully  aware  of  the  threatening 
death  facing  her.  The  belief  is  that  the 
five  wives  before  her  have  been  murdered; 
in  reality  they  are  immured  in  a  subter- 
ranean hall,  each  one  in  turn  having  fol- 
lowed her  curiosity.  For  each  had  been 
given  seven  keys — again,  the  mystic  seven 
— six  of  silver  and  one  of  gold.  The  lat- 
ter is  the  only  key  whose  use  is  forbidden 
them. 

To  Ardiane,  this  seventh  key  alone  has 
interest;  the  others  she  flings  from  her. 
But  the  Nurse  who  comes  with  her  begins 
exploring  with  the  six  silver  keys;  one  by 
one,  they  unlock  doors  behind  which  un- 
told beauties  of  amethysts,  sapphires, 
pearls,  emeralds,  rubies,  and  diamonds  are 
disclosed.  Amidst  incessant  sound  of  liv- 
ing jewels,  Ardiane  bedecks  herself,  for 
through  her  beauty  she  believes  to  learn 
his  secret — the  secret  of  Barbe-Bleue. 
232 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

There  is  an  element  of  the  miraculous 
in  all  this  miracle  of  beauty,  foreshadow- 
ing the  marvels  to  befall  Mytyl  and  Tyltyl 
in  "L'Oiseau  Bleu,"  with  the  fairy  Bery- 
lune.  No  fear  prompts  Ardiane;  though 
death  await  her  behind  the  door  of  the 
golden  key — a  door  she  discovers  within 
the  diamond  bowered  recess, — nothing  de- 
ters her.  The  secret  panels  divide,  only 
to  disclose  darkness,  but  far  off  she  detects 
the  muffled  sound  of  singing.  Once  open- 
ed, the  door  refuses  to  be  closed,  and  the 
distant  voices  chant  of  maids  in  dire  plight, 
seeking  for  day  and  freedom.  Then 
Barbe-Bleue  comes  upon  Ardiane,  who  de- 
fies him  and  boasts  that  it  is  never  her  will 
to  live  in  darkness.  He  steps  near  to 
seize  her,  but  the  Nurse  spreads  alarm,  and 
in  all  confusion  the  rabble  forces  the  door, 
and  rushes  in.  Barbe-Bleue  stands  by, 
while  Ardiane,  in  quiet  reserve,  disperses 
the  crowd,  closing  the  door  upon  herself 
233 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

and  the  vanquished  being.     Such  are  the 
perverseness  and  vagary  of  women! 

It  is  in  the  second  act  that  Ardiane  and 
the  Nurse,  locked  in  the  subterranean  hall, 
meet  with  the  other  wives,  captive  and  in 
rags,  an  inert  and  huddled  mass.  Here 
they  are,  with  all  their  physical  beauty  un- 
used. Why  cannot  they,  like  Ardiane, 
face  the  future  with  determination  to  win 
freedom  by  themselves?  Beneath  a  light- 
ed lamp  Ardiane  sees  all  that  might 
be  were  there  a  will.  Now,  the  five  wives 
bear  the  names  of  Maeterlinck's  former 
heroines;  they  are  Selysette,  Ygraine,  Me- 
lisande,  Bellangere,  and  Alladine.  May- 
be this  similarity  of  outward  form  sug- 
gests a  contrast  in  Maeterlinck's  growing 
technique — the  contrast  of  Selysette  with 
Ardiane.  But  if  this  was  not  the  poet's 
intention,  at  least  Dukas's  score  ignores 
the  fact,  for  in  the  passages  relating  to 
Melisande,  he  has  introduced  an  orchestra- 
tion reminiscent  of  Claude  Debussy. 
234 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

Here  stands  Ardiane,  come  to  set  them 
free — these  women  who  "never  sought  es- 
cape." They  have  been  held  back  by  false 
report;  they  have  never  had  the  initiative 
to  explore.  Rather  than  face  the  unknown, 
they  would  live  in  terror,  even  as  those 
trained  to  certain  belief  would  never  miss 
their  mental  freedom  taken  from  them. 
To  Ardiane,  this  seems  well-nigh  incompre- 
hensible. She  seeks  for  means  of  escape, 
holding  a  small  flame  in  her  hand,  and 
when  a  drop  of  water  extinguishes  the 
lamp,  she  still  seeks,  for  there  is  a  gray 
glimmer  before  her — from  whence  it 
comes  the  others  do  not  know,  so  Ardiane 
herself  determines  to  discover. 

She  climbs  slowly  upon  a  mass  of  rock, 
and  spies  bolts  and  bars  which  the  others 
have  never  sought  to  push  aside ;  they  have 
heard,  without  proving,  that  the  sea  lies 
behind  those  doors.  But  Ardiane  believes 
only  in  the  light;  these  others  are  mostly 
in  love  with  their  darkness.  So  their  de- 
235 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

livcrer  draws  the  bolts,  disclosing  a  glass 
which  she  next  breaks,  letting  in  a  radiance 
of  untold  brightness.  The  scene  is  one  of 
struggle  on  the  part  of  Ardiane  to  keep 
from  falling  into  the  darkness  of  the  other 
women.  And  so  they  all  escape  this  vault- 
ed gloom,  following  Ardiane  as  Mytyl  and 
Tyltyl  followed  Berylune.  They  had 
found  the  door  at  last,  but  only  Ardiane 
had  had  the  will  to  lead  I 

Thus  far,  Barbe-Bleue  has  had  little  to 
do  with  the  main  plot  of  the  story;  in  fact 
his  role  is  not  as  important  as  his  unseen 
influence  which  permeates  the  drama. 
When  the  third  act  opens,  he  is  away  from 
his  castle  on  some  mission,  while  in  the 
hall  the  five  wives  are  decking  themselves 
with  feminine  beauty,  under  the  guidance 
of  Ardiane.  She  is  of  the  woman  woman- 
ly, believing  to  conquer  by  her  physical 
charms.  In  the  midst  of  these  prepara- 
tions, Bluebeard  arrives,  surrounded  by  his 
negro  slaves.  But  at  his  door  he  is  at- 
236 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

tacked  by  the  peasants  with  terrible  on- 
slaught, and,  strange  to  say,  the  wives  who 
see  this  combat  deplore  his  danger  and  be- 
moan his  wounds ! 

Once  more  the  crowd  breaks  in,  carry- 
ing Barbe-Bleue  pinioned  in  their  midst. 
They  believe  they  have  rendered  service  to 
the  women.  But  they  are  wrong.  Ardi- 
ane  manoeuvres  to  drive  them  away,  and 
they  leave,  this  motley  crew,  variously  hurt 
by  the  monster  lying  prone  upon  the  floor. 
The  five  wives  immediately  attend  him, 
turning  upon  the  people  outside,  whose 
only  motive  was  to  save  them;  they  care 
for  him  as  though  he  were  their  kindest 
friend.  The  cords  that  bind  him  are  cut 
from  him,  and  once  more  he  is  unhindered 
to  do  his  deadly  deeds.  And  then  Ardiane 
fares  forth  alone,  none  of  the  other  wom- 
en having  the  will  or  the  inclination  to 
follow. 

The  irony  in  this  conclusion  is  the  irony 
237 


Maurice  Maeterlinck' 

of  "The  Lady  from  the  Sea."*  It  seems 
as  though  Maeterlinck  were  standing  in 
self-judgment  upon  his  early  heroines,  even 
as  Ibsen  turned  in  reaction  against  himself 
in  "The  Wild  Duck."  Says  Archibald 
Henderson,  "it  is  obvious  that  Maeter- 
linck is  envisaging  here  the  present  and 
coming  revolt  of  woman  against  her  sub- 
jection." There  is  no  doubt  that  self-reli- 
ance is  better  than  fear,  that  intelligence  is 
better  than  ignorance.  It  is  feminine  sla- 
very that  has  allowed  a  Bluebeard  to  exist. 
As  the  curtain  descends  on  this  satirical  in- 
cident, we  note  that  Barbe-Bleue  stands 
abashed.  Once  Ardiane  has  passed  from 
his  presence,  he  no  doubt  returns  to  his 
mastery  and  to  his  brutality.  By  her  pass- 
ing he  is  not  revolutionized,  as  Helmcr 
was  reborn  when  Nora  left  his  Doll's 
House.  No  wonder  "Ardiane  et  Barbe- 
Bleue"  bears  as  its  sub-title,  "The  Use- 
less Deliverance" ! 

*See  my  "Henrik  Ibsen :  The  Man  and  his  Plays," 
Chapter  XVIII. 

238 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

As  far  as  "Sister  Beatrice"*  is  concern- 
ed, it  is  a  miracle  play  with  some  of  the 
quality  of  a  morality.  What  is  more,  for 
the  first  time,  Maeterlinck  makes  use  of 
a  story  familiarized  to  English  readers 
by  Adelaide  Proctor  in  "A  Legend  of 
Provence"  and  by  John  Davidson  in  "A 
Ballad  of  a  Nun."  But  what  seems  to  me 
most  curious  is  that  no  critic  has  pointed 
out  the  similarity  existing  between  this 
version  and  the  old  miracle  of  Notre 
Dame. 

It  is  the  story  of  the  Nun  who  goes  out 
into  the  world,  drawn  thither  by  a  young 
Knight,  who  soon  tires  of  her  and  forsakes 

""'Sister  Beatrice"  was  first  published  in  1901.  See 
reviews  in  Athentzum,  May  3,  1902,  1:554-55; 
Critic,  September,  1902,  41 1275.  On  March  14,  1910, 
it  was  given  a  performance  by  the  New  Theatre 
Company,  headed  by  Edith  Wynne  Matthison  and 
Pedro  de  Cordoba.  In  the  late  Spring  of  1911 
(June),  Madame  Bernhardt  gave  one  special 
matinee.  Bernard  Miall  calls  attention  to  a  Dutch 
version  of  the  story  translated  in  an  English  pub- 
lication, The  Pageant,  by  Laurence  Housman  and 
J.  Simons.  See  W.  P.  Eaton's  "At  the  New  Theatre 
and  Others." 

239 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

her.  While  away,  the  Nun's  place  is  taken 
by  the  Holy  Virgin,  between  whom  and 
Sister  Beatrice  there  is  great  likeness. 
But  after  years,  the  Nun  is  disillusioned. 
She  reaches  the  convent  in  time  to  die,  find- 
ing that  all  the  while  her  holy  offices  have 
been  fulfilled  in  miraculous  fashion  by  the 
Virgin. 

The  play  is  simple  in  its  design,  and 
mediaeval  in  its  setting.  There  are  Burne- 
Jones  effects  when  Bellidore  arrives  to 
carry  Beatrice  away,  for  as  the  scene  was 
mounted  at  the  New  Theatre,  beyond  the 
open  door  of  the  austere  convent  might  be 
seen  the  starry  night  and  the  moonlit 
country.  The  opera  libretto  is  spiritual- 
ized, and  contains  the  Maeterlinck  touches 
which  endow  -Sister  Eglantine  with  some 
of  the  delicacy  of  Alladine  and  of  Sely- 
sette,  and  which  relates  Little  Allette  to 
Little  Yniold.  When  the  poor  child  comes 
to  the  convent  in  advance  of  those  beggars 
who  daily  clamor  their  wants  to  the  Sisters 
240 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

— when  she  comes  as  bearer  of  the  news 
that  Sister  Beatrice  has  broken  her  vow, 
only  to  find  what  seems  to  her  to  be  the 
living  Beatrice,  though  it  really  be  the  Vir- 
gin, the  child's  questioning  again  suggests 
that  Maeterlinck  has  been  a  close  reader  of 
Perrault.  For  the  latter,  of  all  writers  of 
the  contes  de  fees,  succeeded  in  retaining 
the  simplicity  of  childhood  in  his  style,  and 
Maeterlinck's  simplicity  is  essentially  deli- 
cate, and  almost  naive.  This  naivete  he 
himself  recognized  and  challenged  when 
he  came  to  consider  "La  Princesse  Ma- 
leine"  in  his  preface  to  the  "Theatre." 

It  is  the  spiritual  value  of  "Sister  Bea- 
trice" which  makes  it  so  beautiful — a  value 
which,  save  in  one  moment  of  effect,  seem- 
ed to  desert  Maeterlinck  completely  in 
"Mary  Magdalene."  This  quality  is  al- 
most lost  in  the  translation,  and  in  the  act- 
ing it  depends  entirely  upon  the  radiance 
and  richness  of  feeling  put  into  it.  The 
moral  of  the  piece  is  almost  too  evident  on 
241 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

the  surface,  but  there  is  a  difference  be- 
tween external  morality  and  spiritual  lu- 
minosity.* In  order  to  maintain  the  action, 
thje  dialogue  has  to  be  cut;  otherwise,  when 
Sister  Beatrice  returns  to  the  convent  and 
shows  the  extent  of  her  repentance,  there 
is  an  overweight  of  moral  quality  that 
retards  the  interest  as  drama. 

In  the  development  of  Maurice  Maeter- 
linck, however,  "Sister  Beatrice"  does  not 
hold  significant  place  for  the  reason  that 
it  does  not  add  to  his  "feminism"  in  the 
least.  Yet  it  does  make  more  definite  the 
moral  situation  externalized  for  dramatic 
effect.  And  it  is  this  very  definiteness  of 
moral  statement  that  makes  "Monna 
Vanna"  his  most  effective  work  for  the 
theatre. 

*This  distinction  is  seen  in  the  methods  of  acting 
distinguishing  Edith  Wynne  Matthison  from  Olga 
Nethersole,  who  played  Sister  Beatrice  on  the  road 
during  the  season  of  1910-11.  The  role  is  totally 
unsuited  to  any  actress  whose  physical  quality 
dominates  the  spiritual.  Miss  Matthison's  interpre- 
tation was  altogether  one  of  genuine  spirituality, 
aided  by  a  moral  enthusiasm  so  characteristic  of  all 

her  work. 

242 


T 


"Here  is  a  play  in  which  almost  every  char- 
acter is  noble,  in  which  treachery  becomes 
a  virtue,  a  lie  becomes  more  vital  than 
truth,  and  only  what  we  are  accustomed 
to  call  virtue  shows  itself  mean,  petty,  and 
even  criminal.  .  .  .  Character,  in  the 
deepest  sense,  makes  the  action,  and  there 
is  something  in  the  movement  of  the  play 
which  resembles  the  grave  and  reasonable 
march  of  a  play  of  Sophocles,  in  which 
men  and  women  deliberate  wisely  and  not 
only  passionately,  in  which  it  is  not  only 
the  cry  of  the  heart  and  of  the  senses 
which  takes  the  form  of  drama.  .  .  . 
The  playwright  has  gained  experience, 
the  thinker  has  gained  wisdom,  but  the 
curious  artist  has  lost  some  of  his  magic." 
— Arthur  Symons  on  "Monna  Vanna." 

HERE  is  a  definite  moral  problem  in 
"Monna  Vanna."*     Because  of  this, 


*"Monna  Vanna"  was  published  in  1902,  and  was 
translated  into  English  by  Alfred  Sutro  (Dodd),  and 
by  A.  I.  DuP.  Coleman  (Harper).  It  was  first  pro- 
duced at  the  Nouveau  Theatre,  Paris,  on  May  17, 1902, 

243 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

it  is  the  first  of  Maeterlinck's  plays — and 
the  only  one  thus  far — lacking  in  mystic 
atmosphere.  It  is  said  that  he  read  Sis- 

with  Lugne-Poe  as  Marco  Colonna,  and  with  Madame 
Georgette  Leblanc  Maeterlinck  as  Vanna  [Theatre 
de  1'CEuvre].  In  Munich,  it  was  given  its  premiere 
at  the  Konigliches  Schauspielhaus,  on  September 
27,  1902.  The  first  New  York  production  occurred  at 
the  Irving  Place  Theatre  on  Dec.  17,  1903;  while 
Madame  Bertha  Kalish,  under  the  management  of 
Harrison  Grey  Fiske,  assumed  the  role,  New  York 
Manhattan  Theatre,  Oct.  23,  1005.  See  Fevrier's 
score.  Also  Dial,  Oct  16,  1903,  35:257-58  (E.  E. 
Hale,  Jr.)  ;  Nation,  Oct.  15,  1903,  77:307;  Athenaum, 
June  28,  1902,  1 1827 ;  "Reader  of  Plays  to  the 
Rescue"  [Censor  of  "Monna  Vanna"],  iQth  Century, 
52:72-75  (W.  F.  Lord),  52:282-87  (H.  H.  Fyfe), 
52:289  (W.  F.  Lord);  Fortn.,  Aug.,  1902,  78:153-56 
(L.  A.  Tadema)  ;  Liv.  Age,  234:378;  "My  Idea  of 
'Monna  Vanna,'"  Harp.  Wk.,  Nov.  II,  1905, 
49:1640  (Bertha  Kalish);  Bookman,  Sept.,  1902, 
16:46-49  (F.  T.  Cooper);  "Monna  Vanna,"  Arthur 
Symons,  in  "Plays,  Acting,  and  Music"  (p.  137)  ; 
also  in  same  volume,  Symons'  examination  of  "A 
Question  in  Censorship"  (p.  143).  The  play  was  pub- 
lished in  Revue  de  Paris,  1902,  3:233-80,  and  was 
translated  by  Charlotte  Porter  in  Poet-Lore,  15:1-52, 
1004.  See  Eugen  Zabel's  "Maurice  Maeterlinck  und 
'Monna  Vanna/ "  in  "Zur  modernen  dramaturgic," 
I9°3>  3:128-142;  also  "Modern  Dramatists,"  pp. 
242-54,  by  Ashley  Dukes  (London:  Palmer).  Con- 
cerning Maeterlinck  and  Browning,  see  Independent, 
55:552-54;  1398-1400  (W.  L.  Phelps) ;  Academy, 
64:594  (W.  L.  Phelps);  Poet-Lore,  Oct.-Dec.,  1903. 
In  Maeterlinck's  letter  he  speaks  of  his  next  play  as 
"Jocquelle."  There  is  no  indication  as  to  whether  he 
intended  to  use  this  name  instead  of  "Joyzelle." 

244 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

mondi  for  months  before  writing  "Monna 
Vanna."  Such  close  application  to  histori- 
cal detail  finds  itself  reflected  in  speech 
after  speech;  in  this  respect  it  shows  the 
weakness  of  D'Anmmzio's  "Francesca  da 
Rimini."  We  have  here  a  plot  that  raises 
the  legend  of  Lady  Godiva  to  the  sphere 
of  a  personal  morality  thoroughly  modern 
in  its  point  of  view,  a  morality  sounded 
for  example  in  Shaw's  "Candida,"  when 
the  heroine,  discussing  Eugene's  future 
with  her  husband,  Morrell,  says : 

"Ah,  James,  how  little  you  understand 
me,  to  talk  of  your  confidence  in  my  good- 
ness and  purity!  I  would  give  them  both 
to  poor  Eugene  as  willingly  as  I  would 
give  my  shawl  to  a  beggar  dying  of  cold, 
if  there  were  nothing  else  to  restrain  me. 
Put  your  trust  in  my  love  for  you,  James, 
for  if  that  went,  I  should  care  very  little 
for  your  sermons." 

It  were  well  to  consider  also  that  Mae- 
terlinck makes  bold  to  acknowledge  his 
245 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

indebtedness  to  Browning's  "Luria,"  as  he 
was  to  Shakespeare's  "The  Tempest"  in 
the  case  of  "Joyzelle."  Maeterlinck  wrote 
to  Prof.  Phelps  of  Yale,  from  67  rue 
Raynouard,  Paris,  his  note  dated  March 
22,  1903: 

"Vous  avez  parfaitement  raison:  il  y  a 
entre  une  scene  episodique  de  mon  2me 
acte  (celle  ou  Prinzivalle  demasque  Trivul- 
zio)  et  I'une  des  grandes  scenes  de  'Luria' 
une  similitude  que  je  m'etonne  de  n*  avoir 
pas  vue  signaler  plus  tot.  Je  m'en  etonne 
d'autant  plus  que,  loin  de  cacher  cette  si- 
militude, j'avais  tenu  a  I'affirmer  moi-meme 
en  prenant  exactement  les  mcmes  villes 
ennemies,  la  meme  epoque  et  presque  les 
memes  personnages:  alors  qu'il,  eut  ete 
bien  facile  de  transposer  le  tout  et  de  ren- 
dre  I'emprunt  me connais sable,  si  j'  avais  eu 
f intention  de  le  dissimuler." 

Being  a  deep  reader  of  Browning,  it  is 
Maeterlinck's  belief  that  one  might  natur- 
ally be  inspired  by  the  reading  of  "Luria" ; 
246 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

thus  would  he  relieve  himself  quite  natur- 
ally of  the  accusation  that  he  had  bor- 
rowed from  the  English  poet.  He  grants 
that  into  "Monna  Vanna"  he  infused 
some  of  the  atmosphere  of  "Luna,"  and  he 
regards  Browning  as  his  master.  Thus 
far  he  would  pay  tribute. 

This  drama,  nevertheless,  whatever 
the  disputes,  is  Maeterlinck*s  theatrical 
pinnacle ;  it  is  effective  in  a  direct  way,  and 
the  problems  are  thoroughly  human.  Not 
only  that,  but  the  characters  are  very  def- 
inately  portrayed,  each  one  having  in  his 
power  to  make  the  situation  other  than  it 
actually  is.  Some  critics  claim  that  in  view 
of  Prinzivalle's  excellence  as  a  man,  he 
would  not  have  exacted  such  a  test  upon 
Fauna,  but  the  Florence  of  that  day  en- 
gendered many  feelings  in  the  hero,  especi- 
ally that  hero  despised  by  his  enemies  and 
plotted  against  by  his  own  people. 

The  story  is  one  dealing  with  the  Italian 
republics  and  their  internecine  warfare. 
247 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

At  the  rise  of  the  curtain,  the  Florentine 
forces  under  Prinzivalle  have  laid  siege  to 
Pisa  with  disastrous  and  successful  effect, 
and  Gtiido,  the  husband  of  Vanna  and 
General  of  the  Pisan  forces,  has  sent  his 
aged  father  as  hostage  to  sue  for  peace. 
When  Marco  returns,  he  brings  the  assur- 
ing news  that  provisions,  ammunition,  and 
Prinzivalle's  own  support  will  be  given 
Pisa  upon  one  condition.  This  condition 
is  the  moral  problem  of  the  play  as  well 
as  the  problem  of  personal  morality.  It 
is  the  condition  which,  culminating  in  the 
second  act,  resulted  in  the  play  being  cen- 
sored from  the  English  stage.* 

*The  Reader  of  Plays  censored  the  second  act 
of  "Monna  Vanna."  See  London  Times,  June  20, 
1902,  p.  7,  col.  4.  Those  who  protested  were  Wil- 
liam Archer,  John  Oliver  Hobbs,  Richard  Garnett, 
Thomas  Hardy,  Frederic  Harrison,  Lucas  Malet, 
Maurice  Hewlett,  Henry  Arthur  Jones,  George 
Meredith,  Swinburne,  Arthur  Symons,  Lawrence 
Alma  Tadema,  and  W.  B.  Yeats.  Fyfe  argued 
against  the  play  on  the  supposition  that  the  theatre, 
appealing  to  the  crowd,  should  not  convey  to  the 
people  original  ideas  before  they  have  been  sub- 
mitted to  the  careful  judgment  of  the  individual. 
Ideas  should  only  be  used  on  the  stage,  so  the  argu- 

248 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

The  demand  of  Prinzivalle,  the  bar- 
barian, the  mercenary,  is  this:  that  in  ex- 
change for  his  assistance,  Monna  Vanna 
come  to  him  clad  only  in  her  mantle.  In 
Maeterlinck's  hands,  this  situation  be- 
comes fraught  with  the  direst  significance, 
the  most  subtle  moral  nuances.  Marco, 
the  old  man  and  hence  the  philosopher, 
takes  this  stipulation  in  its  broadest  civic 
sense  and  in  recognition  of  Fauna's  strong- 
est characteristics.  The  whole  problem  is 
that  of  individual  interpretation  of  purity. 
Vanna  consents  to  go;  a  city's  salvation 
shall  not  be  weighed  in  the  balance  with 
one  woman's  personal  safety !  There  is  no 
test  here  as  there  is  to  be  in  "Joyzelle"; 
it  is  simply  the  measure  of  character  which 
takes  place. 

Undoubtedly,  Prinzivalle  had  lust  in  his 
demand,  but  when  Vanna  comes  to  him,  he 

ment  went,  after  they  have  been  in  the  air  some 
time,  and  the  people  have  become  accustomed  to 
them.  None  of  these  narrow-minded  critics  saw  the 
moral  and  wholesome  force  of  the  situation. 

249 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

is  disarmed  by  the  absolute  beauty  of  her 
control.  He  had  loved  the  woman  before 
him  since  her  girlhood,  and  now  the  rich- 
ness of  his  love  transforms  the  man.  The 
situation  becomes  one  wherein  Vanna — 
stronger  sister  to  Aglavaine,  and  some- 
what of  the  stature  of  Ardiane — soars  to 
excellent  assertive  heights;  wherein  Prinzi- 
valle  rises  to  the  full  realization  of  his  love. 
Historical  events  so  conduce  that  when  he 
leaves  with  Vanna  for  Pisa,  he  is  in  no  way 
stigmatized  as  deserter. 

But  Guido,  meanwhile,  has  not  become 
illumined;  he  represents  in  the  play  the 
stereotyped  moral  attitude;  one  might  al- 
most claim  the  average  human  attitude.  It 
is  when  Vanna  returns  to  him  with  the 
calm,  exquisite  assurance  that  she  comes 
back  to  him  as  pure  as  when  she  left  him — •. 
it  is  at  this  moment  that  Guido  illustrates 
his  incapacity  to  trust,  to  believe,  to  see. 
He  doubts  Vanna  in  every  way,  especially 
so  when  Prinzivalle  stands  before  him. 
250 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

Then,  in  his  spiritually  dead  manner,  he 
grasps  at  passing  straws.  Frenzy  seizes 
him,  and  he  makes  himself  believe  that  his 
wife  has  inveigled  Prinzivalle  to  come  with 
her,  so  that  she  may  place  him  in  the  hands 
of  the  Pisans.  ,Yet  still  Vanna  persists 
that  she  returns  untouched,  and  she  be- 
seeches Guido  :  "look  at  me  as  though  you 
had  never  seen  me  before  this  hour,  which 
is  the  first,  the  only  one  when  you  truly  can 
love  me  as  I  wish  to  be  loved." 

But  the  truth  to  Guido  is  like  the  sea 
against  an  impregnable  rock;  there  is  only 
one  impression  he  retains.  Remove  this, 
and  his  frenzy  loosens  Its  bounds.  He 
shames  her  before  the  crowds  at  the  door- 
way; he  even  pours  wrath  upon  that  very 
crowd  for  whose  safety  his  wife  has  sold 
her  honour;  he  finds  outlet  for  this  con- 
tumely upon  the  head  of  his  father  Marco. 
In  fact,  he  doubts  without  one  hope  of 
trusting.  And  as  a  consequence  he  sends 
Prinzivalle  to  prison.  Then  Vanna  buys 
251 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

the  prisoner  with  a  lie — the  lie  that  Guido 
believes  as  truth.  Did  he  not  throughout 
consider  that  Vanna  had  betrayed  Prinzi- 
valle into  his  hands?  This  is  what  she 
tells  him  now,  and  when  the  curtain  falls, 
she  has  the  key  to  her  lover's  dungeon. 

For  she  does  love  Prinzivalle — never 
more  so  than  in  comparison  with  the  weak- 
ness of  Guido,  who  forfeits  his  love  with 
the  forfeit  of  his  trust.  Marco,  the  wise, 
understands  her  falsehood  and  its  full 
significance ;  Prinzivalle  knows  that  though 
she  make  believe  it  is  her  task  to  visit  ven- 
geance upon  him  in  his  dungeon,  she  will, 
in  reality  come  to  him  with  the  true  free- 
dom and  strength  of  her  love.  I  should 
say  that  whereas,  in  "Joyzelle,"  Maeter- 
linck sends  his  heroine  through  varied  tests 
of  her  love,  here  he  succeeds  in  interpret- 
ing rather  than  in  testing.  And  what  does 
Georgette  Leblanc  write? 

"Monna  Vanna,  to  whom  destiny  pro- 
pounds a  problem  so  beautiful  and  so  sim- 
252 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

pie  that  no  generous  soul  could  have  solved 
it  otherwise  than  she  did  I  I  will  not  insist 
upon  a  woman's  character  so  wonderfully 
called  for  by  circumstances.  Certainly, 
Vanna  was  ready;  she  had  had  happiness 
of  living  in  the  light  of  the  good  philoso- 
pher Marco;  her  intelligence  was  pre- 
pared; her  training  kept  her  above  ordi- 
nary life.  She  was  bound  to  be  on  the  im- 
mediate level  of  the  great  event  that  ques- 
tioned her  and  bound  to  reply  to  it  without 
hesitation." 

Furthermore,  I  agree  with  Lacour  when 
he  claims  that  the  dialogue  of  "Monna 
Vanna,"  in  its  sobriety,  in  its  incisive  truth, 
reminds  him  of  Ibsen's  "Rosmersholm." 
It  is  a  healthy  attitude,  and  there  is  more 
of  the  civic  spirit  in  it  than  in  any  other  of 
Maeterlinck's  dramas.  But  the  play  is  not 
a  masterpiece,  though  it  stands  individual- 
ized very  largely  because  of  the  modern 
spirit  of  the  characters.  There  is  a  lack  of 
spiritual  quality  about  Vanna  that  is  re- 
253 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

placed  by  the  healthy  red  blood  of  the  hu- 
man situation. 

Everyone  commented  upon  Maeter- 
linck's departure  from  the  mystic  atmo- 
sphere; his  creation  of  a  moral  problem 
through  examination  of  dramatic  action 
which  was  the  outcome  of  different  atti- 
tudes toward  love,  was  interesting,  but  his 
dream  quality  was  wanting.  There  is  no 
doubt  that  because  of  the  varied  expres- 
sions of  critical  surprise,  he  was  tempted 
to  return  to  the  spiritual.  But  his  manner 
was  to  be  different  because  his  feminine 
interest  was  different.  "Joyzelle"*  repre- 
sents the  measure  of  his  interest  in  "The 
Tempest"  on  one  hand,  and  in  the  spirit- 
ual development  of  woman  on  the  other. 

*"Joyzelle"  was  published  in  1903,  and  was  pre- 
sented at  the  Theatre  du  Gymnase  on  May  20, 
1903,  with  Georgette  Leblanc  in  the  title  role.  Be- 
sides the  official  translation  by  A.  Teixeira  de 
Mattos,  a  version  was  published  in  Poet-Lore,  1905, 
16:1-45,  done  by  Clarence  Stratton.  See  Fortn. 
Rev.,  July,  1903,  80:76-87  (M.  A.  Gerothwohl) ; 
Critic,  August,  1903,  43:114:15  (Grace  Corneau) ; 
Lamp,  27:581-86  (J.  Huneker). 

254 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

In  "Joyzelle,"  as  he  himself  has  said,  there 
is  "the  triumph  of  will  and  love  over  des- 
tiny or  fatality,  as  against  the  converse  les- 
son of  'Monna  Vanna.' '  It  is  a  play  that 
might  become  the  text  for  a  trial  of  love, 
in  which  the  two  young  folk,  Joyzelle  and 
Lanceor,  are  within  the  power  of  Merlin 
and  his  genius,  Arlelle — Arlelle  represent- 
ing the  hidden  force  within  each  one  of  us. 
I  was  constantly  reminded  of  the  legend 
as  it  occurs  in  Tennyson's  "Merlin  and 
Vivien" — though  the  magic  power  is  used 
to  more  advantage  here. 

Yet  even  the  magic  of  "Joyzelle"  is 
fraught  with  a  more  philosophic  tone  than 
the  magic  of  the  marionette  dramas,  and 
in  consequence  has  faded  before  definite 
ideas.  The  story  is  simple  of  comprehen- 
sion; it  is  Maeterlinck's  concept  of  love 
that  is  more  difficult  to  accept.  In  ap- 
proaching Maeterlinck's  philosophy,  it  is 
necessary  to  grasp  fully  the  whole  signifi- 
cance of  his  inward  gaze,  a  gaze  that  aims 
255 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

at  self-revelation  in  its  fullest  sense.  For 
he  writes  in  "Wisdom  and  Destiny" : 

"When  you  love,  it  is  not  your  love 
that  forms  part  of  your  destiny;  but  the 
knowledge  of  self  that  you  will  have  found, 
deep  down  in  your  love — this  it  is  that  will 
help  to  fashion  your  life." 

It  is  this  ideal  quality  to  the  characters 
in  "Joyzelle"  that  makes  them  abstract  ve- 
hicles for  the  fullest  expressions  of  love. 
What  they  experience  is  simply  Maeter- 
linck's test  which  he  would  give  to  all  love 
in  order  to  keep  it  strong  and  not  built 
over  caves  of  false  illusions. 

Merlin's  son  is  Lanceor  whose  "fate  is 
wholly  inscribed  within  a  circle  of  love." 
He  approaches,  and  Arielle  says  to  Mer- 
lin that  if  his  son  find  not  the  all-powerful 
love  before  the  month  is  past,  then  death 
will  claim  him.  The  point  is  to  filter 
Joyzelle's  love  to  see  how  much  gold  there 
is  in  it.  Though  the  tests  through  which 
she  is  now  carried  are  human,  they  are 
256 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

administered  with  a  precision  that  is  whol- 
ly scientific.  Lanceor  and  Joyzelle  are 
somewhat  children  of  the  sea;  the  former 
has  been  a  wanderer,  the  latter  shipwreck- 
ed. It  makes  little  difference  who  they  are ; 
the  great  fact  is  they  love. 

Merlin  comes  upon  them,  making  Lan- 
ceor his  prisoner,  and  separating  him  from 
Joyzelle,  whom  he  bids  keep  away  for 
fear  of  betrayal.  From  this  point,  Joy- 
zelle's  struggle  begins.  Kept  apart,  they 
refuse  to  abide  by  false  dictates,  and  so 
they  meet  in  a  neglected  garden,  Lanceor 
risking  all  for  his  love.  Their  love  pours 
over  them,  and  in  an  ecstasy  of  passion 
they  are  discovered  by  Merlin.  The  stage 
setting  is  in  anticipation  of  the  graveyard 
scene  in  "The  Blue  Bird" — a  scene  where- 
in the  gloomy  garden  has  become  ablaze 
with  live  beauty.  Nought  can  be  kept 
from  his  magic  gaze,  nought  from  the 
knowing  power  of  Arielle. 

Lanceor  is  now  mortally  wounded  by 
257 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

an  adder,  so  it  seems,  though  really  all  is 
prearranged  by  Merlin,  who  alone  knows 
the  remedy  that  will  cure.  It  is  difficult 
for  him  thus  to  test  his  son,  yet  it  is  so 
willed  and  he  must  obey.  Arielle  now  ma- 
terializes in  the  shape  of  a  beautiful 
woman,  and  Lanceor,  seeing  her,  becomes 
intoxicated  by  her  brilliancy.  Joyzelle  is 
guided  within  their  way,  and  Arielle  dis- 
appears. Lanceor  lies  out  of  it  as  best  he 
might,  but  a  lie  has  no  power  to  destroy 
the  love  kindled  in  Joyzelle' s  breast. 

Then,  seized  with  the  terrible  pangs  of 
the  slow-creeping  poison,  Lanceor  is  trans- 
formed in  looks,  but  even  the  physical  dis- 
agreeableness  of  his  appearance  cannot 
deter  her.  "Come,  come,"  she  cries,  "do 
not  think  about  the  lies  of  the  mirrors. 
They  do  not  know  what  they 
say;  but  love  knows.  .  .  ." 

And  so  the  play  progresses  through 
various  shades  of  torture  into  which  Joy- 
zelle is  plunged,  the  final  one  being  much 
258 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

like  the  situation  in  "Monna  Vanna."  To 
save  Lanceor,  she  will  do  anything. 
Merlin  demands  that  she  give  herself  to 
him  for  a  short  hour  in  order  to  save  the 
man  she  loves.  She  consents,  but  her  love 
will  not  thus  be  thwarted.  Almost  in  the 
spirit  of  a  Judith  going  to  Holofernes, 
Joyzelle  enters  Merlin's  room,  a  dagger 
concealed  beneath  the  folds  of  her  cloak. 
Her  love  is  so  great  that  she  would  kill 
the  obstacle  that  stands  between  Lanceor 
and  herself.  This  is  the  supreme  test,  and 
the  one  that  proves  her  worthy  of  being 
Lanceor' s  love. 

Such  is  the  bare  outline  of  "Joyzelle"; 
there  is  deeper  significance,  which  "Monna 
Vanna"  fails  to  reach.  There  is  truth  in 
what  E.  K.  Chambers  says,  that  "the  vital- 
ity of  the  heroine  alone  saves  it  from  be- 
coming a  somewhat  inhuman  allegory  of 
Sagesse  and  Amour,  in  the  manner  of  the 
'Roman  de  la  Rose' '  If  you  deprive  the 
259 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

play  of  outward  personality — and  Joyzelle 
does  not  impress  one  as  being  a  woman — 
then  the  temptations  of  Lanceor  are  sim- 
ply Maeterlinck's  ideas  concerning  instinct 
given  dramatic  form.  Once  more  we 
have  the  sage  in  the  person  of  Merlin. 
And  the  whole  play  may  be  taken  as  the 
triumph  of  love  in  the  person  of  Joyzelle. 

Neither  "Monna  Vanna"  nor  this  play 
is  great.  Each  represents  a  stage  in  Mae- 
terlinck's concept  of  life — a  life  that  is  far 
above  the  normal,  yet  within  the  reach  of 
all;  a  life  as  deep  as  the  infinite,  at  the 
bottom  of  which  lies  the  real  truth  of  exis- 
tence. 

In  the  next  play,  it  is  as  though  a  bubble 
of  Maeterlinckean  thought  had  exploded, 
giving  fragments  of  philosophy  suitable 
for  the  child-world.  It  is  as  though  Mae- 
terlinck had  gone  through  his  own  work, 
picking  up  scenes  and  thoughts  worthy  of 
expansion.  He  put  them  together  in  rather 
260 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

childlike  fashion,  and  sent  forth  "L'Oiseau 
Bleu"*  to  delight  the  world. 

It  was  not  a  surprise  that  Maeterlinck 
should  be  the  author  of  "The  Blue  Bird." 
Not  only  is  it  a  subject  fitly  in  accord  with 
his  technique,  but,  in  essay  after  essay,  and 
step  by  step  in  his  philosophy,  he  has  pre- 
pared the  way  for  this  fantastic  expression 
of  the  soul  of  things.  The  one  phase  that 
is  absolutely  new  in  "The  Blue  Bird"  is 
its  direct  appeal  to  the  imagination  of 

*The  play  was  first  published  in  1908.  As  to  the 
origin  of  the  Blue  Bird  of  Happiness,  Madame 
D'Aulnoy  has  a  story  in  which  it  occurs;  and  there 
is  also  mentioned  the  blue  flower  of  happiness  in 
Dr.  Henry  Van  Dyke's  "Blue  Flower,"  where  he 
gives  a  quotation  from  Novalis,  one  of  Maeterlinck's 
philosophical  sponsors. 

In  the  French  production  of  the  play,  Madame 
Maeterlinck  assumed  the  role  of  Light.  The  fantasy 
has  made  its  way  all  over  Russia.  The  London 
production,  due  to  the  imaginative  genius  of  Herbert 
Trench  (Spring,  1910),  was  received  with  great 
enthusiasm.  The  New  York  production  occurred 
in  the  Fall  of  1910  at  the  New  Theatre.  For  com- 
ments on  "The  Blue  Bird,"  see  Revue  Bleue,  March 
II,  1911,  p.  316;  Petit  Bleue,  March  23,  24,  1908 
(Gerard  Harry)  ;  Nation,  88:366-67;  Dial,  46:296-97, 
May  i,  1909  (E.  E.  Hale,  Jr.);  Harp.  Wk.,  54:20 
(W.  Winter) ;  Sat.  Rev.,  108  749,  Dec.  18,  1909. 
261 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

childhood  through  the  utilization  of  ex- 
ternals easily  understood,  and  through  the 
projection  of  deep-founded  belief  into 
scenes  of  abiding  beauty. 

There  are  three  approaches  to  "The 
Blue  Bird" :  by  way  of  the  fairy  element  in 
the  narrative,  which  only  children  deeply 
understand ;  by  way  of  color  and  sound  and 
motion,  which  on  the  surface  make  a  thing 
of  beauty  to  be  a  joy  forever;  and  finally 
by  way  of  the  symbol  which  represents  life 
all  poignant,  because  it  reveals  life  so 
simple  in  its  hidden  meaning. 

It  is  never  safe  to  determine  what 
prompts  an  author  to  write  a  book  or  play. 
Yet  we  cannot  but  connect  "The  Blue 
Bird"  with  "Peter  Pan."  "Do  you  believe 
in  fairies?"  cried  the  latter,  full  of  the 
youthful  warmth  of  Miss  Adams.  And 
Tyltyl's  appeal  is  much  the  same  regarding 
the  Blue  Bird.  "If  any  of  you  should  find 
him,  would  you  be  so  very  kind  as  to  give 
him  back  to  us?"  There  is  no  similarity 
262 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

in  spiritual  treatment,  only  in  external  bal- 
ance. Nanna  is  a  character  even  though  a 
dog;  Tylo  is  the  soul  and  nature  of  all 
dogs.  Peter  is  the  embodiment  of  un- 
changeable childhood  that  never  grows  up ; 
Mytyl  and  Tyltyl  are  the  symbols  of  wan- 
dering humanity  as  well  as  the  exemplifica- 
tion of  Wordsworth's  lines  that  "Heaven 
lies  about  us  in  our  infancy." 

"The  Blue  Bird"  was  written  about 
children  for  the  pleasure  of  grown  people. 
It  was  immediately  taken  to  the  hearts  of 
young  folk.  That  is  the  mystery  concern- 
ing all  juvenile  classics;  they  have  no  nar- 
row age  limits.  As  a  mere  pantomime  we 
welcome  it,  since  it  fills  a  large  want.  It 
has  a  fairy  quality  and  a  tendency  to  ani- 
mate which  are  the  special  characteristics 
of  children;  it  has  the  excellent  and  rare 
quality  of  being  true,  according  to  imagi- 
nation. Just  in  this  respect  does  Maeter- 
linck remain  constant  to  himself  as  an  ar- 
tist and  as  a  philosopher.  In  his  deep  seri- 
263 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

ousness,  he  strives  to  look  at  life  in  the 
same  way  that  Mytyl  and  Tyltyl  regarded 
their  home  after  they  had  turned  the  dia- 
mond in  the  cap  of  fairy  Berylune.  There 
is  no  such  thing  as  matter,  exclaimed 
Bishop  Berkeley.  The  object  ceases  to 
exist  just  as  soon  as  the  subject  ceases  to 
observe.  But  Maeterlinck  does  not  deny 
matter;  he  seeks  for  the  soul  of  things, 
for  matter,  after  all,  is  only  the  semblance. 

Projected  upon  the  stage,  we  have  in 
"The  Blue  Bird"  the  sum  and  substance 
of  all  Breton  folk-tales.  To  my  mind,  that 
is  the  genuine  note  in  the  play.  It  is  not 
great  in  its  unity  of  purpose;  as  a  whole,  it 
is  not  coherent  in  its  unity  of  idea.  But  in 
its  trend  of  events  it  is  amusing  and  uplift- 
ing; it  is  beautiful. 

No  one  need  go  to  the  play  with  an  over- 
powering sense  of  its  obscurity.  In  its 
details  it  is  very  obvious,  much  more  so 
than  "Aglavaine  et  Selysette"  or  "Joy- 
zelle."  But  if  you  know  Maeterlinck,  you 
264 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

cannot  help  but  recognize  all  those  touches 
by  which  he  is  commonly  identified.  To 
children,  the  New  Theatre  production  was 
pleasing  because  of  the  variety  of  the 
scenes  which  were  wonderfully  picturesque. 
To  grown  people  "The  Blue  Bird"  was  ef- 
fective because  it  was  full  of  charm — a 
charm  which  either  gripped  instantly  or 
else  seemed  ridiculously  irrelevent  to  an 
irreverent  mind. 

As  a  critic,  you  must  either  recognize  the 
fact  that  the  chief  aim  of  a  producer  is  not 
perfection,  but  the  suggestion  of  perfec- 
tion, or  else  condemn  the  production,  as 
mounted  at  the  New  Theatre,  for  certain 
weaknesses  in  its  acting,  certain  barrenness 
in  its  staging,  and  certain  inadequacy  in  its 
spiritual  expression. 

To  my  mind,  "The  Blue  Bird"  is  a  high 
pinnacle  in  theatre  work,  provided  one 
views  it  with  an  open  heart.  For  in  its 
ethics  it  is  naively  simple,  presenting  in- 
ward questioning  as  a  matter  of  outward 
265 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

fact.  I  take  it  as  a  child's  play  with  all  the 
jumble  of  a  child's  wisdom,  of  a  child's 
philosophy.  Where  are  the  dead?  The 
answer  is  externalized  in  the  Land  of 
Memory  scene.  What  is  the  Resurrection? 
This  query  is  answered  in  the  flowering  of 
dead  plants  in  the  churchyard.  Where 
do  babies  come  from?  Ponder  the  delicate 
humour  of  the  Unborn  Souls.  It  is  a  net- 
work of  opinions  already  expressed  else- 
where in  Maeterlinck's  writings,  and  is  al- 
most formless  in  its  attempt  to  reach  any 
definite  conclusions.  Maeterlinck  has  al- 
ways stood  for  the  essence  of  things,  and 
the  new  note  he  adds  to  "The  Blue  Bird" 
is  a  humour  which  tempers  his  usual  relig- 
ious reverence. 

In  fact,  there  is  quaint  grace  in  identi- 
fication of  philosophy  with  character.  In 
no  way  does  "The  Blue  Bird"  resemble  an 
allegory,  and  the  souls  of  Bread,  Sugar, 
Water,  Fire,  and  Milk  are  not  to  be  re- 
garded as  abstractions,  since  they  are  de- 
266 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

picted  with  individualized  natures.  I  take 
them  as  external  fancies,  and  as  very  real 
fancies  at  that;  and  a  loaf  of  bread  or  run- 
ning water  has  a  different  aspect  now  that 
I  have  seen  "The  Blue  Bird."  Who  knows 
what  overtones  life  may  have  in  store  for 
us  if  we  care  to  follow  in  the  footsteps  of 
Maeterlinck ! 

"The  Blue  Bird"  might  have  taken  some 
other  form  had  it  not  been  for  the  essay  on 
"Our  Friend,  the  Dog"  in  "The  Double 
Garden,"  wherein  are  found  the  humour 
and  richness  of  the  symbol  that  we  find  in 
"The  Blue  Bird" — the  same  estimate  of 
the  world  from  the  eyes  of  things  that  are 
not  supposed  either  to  see  or  to  see  intelli- 
gently. The  dog  has  found  his  god  in 
man;  he  is  the  only  living  thing  that  has 
reached  its  god.  The  full  force  of  this 
statement  surges  over  us,  not  when  we  at- 
tempt to  estimate  the  adjustment  of  a 
dog's  life  to  the  mysteries  surrounding 
267 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

man,  but  when  we  ask  ourselves  the  ques- 
tion Maeterlinck  himself  propounds. 

"How  should  we  fare  if  we  had  to  serve, 
while  remaining  within  our  sphere,  a  di- 
vinity, not  an  imaginary  one,  like  to  our- 
selves, because  the  offspring  of  our  own 
brain,  but  a  god  actually  visible,  ever  pres- 
ent, ever  active,  and  as  foreign,  as  superior 
to  our  being  as  we  are  to  the  dog?" 

Tylof  therefore,  is  but  the  externaliza- 
tion  of  that  philosophy,  and  the  Cat  is  but 
an  example  of  the  same  thought  applied  to 
another  sphere  of  animal  nature.  It  is  as 
though  Maeterlinck  had  set  himself  the 
task  of  showing  how  much  fantasy  there 
really  is  in  mysticism — a  fantasy  with  a 
queer  blend  of  sexual  emotion  and  of  pas- 
sionate fervor.  Love,  he  somewhere  says, 
is  but  the  cry  of  souls  longing  to  be  born. 
Here,  in  a  phrase  almost,  we  note  the  seed 
for  that  exquisite  flower  of  thought — the 
scene  with  the  Unborn  Souls,  carrying 
their  destinies  with  them  upon  earth. 
268 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

Only  Maeterlinck's  technique — the  toucK 
of  "The  Intruder" — could  compass  the 
delicacy  of  such  a  scene  without  creating 
a  laugh.  Life  is  mystic,  but  not  wholly  so, 
for  there  are  degrees  of  living.  It  might 
be  wiser  to  say  that  to  the  mystic  life  is 
wholly  mystic.  Hence,  those  who  take 
"The  Blue  Bird"  literally,  will  find  it  a 
motley  array  of  thoughts;  yet  even  so,  the 
fairy  tale  remains. 

Beauty  of  the  kind  dominating  this  play 
shrivels  at  the  approach  of  minute  analysis. 
As  a  mere  play,  it  is  all  an  external 
pageant,  giving  to  childhood  an  imagina- 
tive heritage  our  modern  educators  would 
deny.  The  flower  can  be  torn  to  pieces  in 
order  to  examine  its  detail,  but  then  there 
will  be  no  flower  left.  The  shreds  and 
patches  of  the  theatre  count  where  the 
whole  is  beauty,  and,  at  the  New  Theatre, 
the  shreds  and  patches  were  well  hidden 
by  the  beauty.  "Become  as  little  children," 
despite  your  years,  and  the  philosophy 
269 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

with  which  "The  Blue  Bird"  is  fraught 
will  reach  you  as  a  far-off  echo  of  that  pain 
of  experience  which  only  makes  life  worthy 
since  it  makes  life  active.  "The  Blue 
Bird"  is  a  spiritualized  "Peter  Pan," 
though  not  as  eternally  youthful;  it  is  as 
bewitching  as  "A  Midsummer  Night's 
Dream." 

Like  the  latter,  it  is  human  as  well  as  hu- 
mourous. For  the  first  time,  I  fully  realized 
that  a  symbol  may  be  definite  in  its  seem- 
ing indefiniteness;  that  it  may  contain  a 
legitimate  humour  of  its  own,  no  matter 
how  spiritual  its  meaning.  Children  who 
attempt  to  give  answer  to  their  own  ques- 
tioning of  the  mystery  which  surrounds 
them,  unconsciously  show  that  quality  of 
humour  we  attribute  to  the  symbol.  Here- 
in we  find  Maeterlinck's  simple  treatment 
of  the  belief  that  all  ills  are  healed  in  the 
spiritual  light  of  truth  and  wisdom.  Mytyl 
and  Tyltyl,  representative  of  humanty,  go 
forth  with  fairy  Berylune,  having  been 
270 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

given  by  her  the  power  of  seeing  the  past 
and  future,  as  well  as  the  souls  of  things. 
These  two  are  in  search  for  the  Blue  Bird 
of  Happiness.  Science,  superstitious  faith, 
fear,  confront  them,  and  everywhere  they 
think  they  see  this  Blue  Bird,  but  they  are 
only  deceived.  Then,  at  the  last,  when 
they  return  home,  they  find  this  happiness 
in  their  own  hearts.  Here  is  a  true  story, 
a  wholesome  moral,  and  what  is  more,  an 
imaginative  revel.  And  in  these  modern 
days  we  need  imagination  to  offset  over- 
shadowing fact. 

Only  when  Maeterlinck  brought  Mytyl 
and  Tyltyl  before  the  terrors  of  night  did 
he  overstep  the  simplicity  of  the  child  ele- 
ment in  "The  Blue  Bird."  For  there  are 
no  scientific  doubts  in  the  child  mind,  and 
there  was  no  necessity,  as  many  critics  have 
noted,  to  push  little  wanderers  into  dark- 
ness on  their  search  for  happiness,  even 
though  unseen  forces,  many  of  them  evil, 
unconsciously  surround  them.  Man  may 
271 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

look  for  fulfilment  outside  of  himself,  but 
the  kingdom  is  within.  Yet  though  the 
child  heart  is  essentially  merry,  it  is  not  so 
merry  that  it  does  not  ask  questions  of 
staggering  proportions.* 

"The  Blue  Bird"  is  not  a  retrogression 
in  the  development  of  Maurice  Maeter- 
linck; neither  is  it  a  great  advance.  But  it 
is  a  most  beautiful  exemplification  of  the 
mystic  in  a  most  piquant  mood. 

"Mary  Magdalene"  is  Maeterlinck's 
latest  published  play,  and  one  which  can 
very  readily  be  dismissed  with  a  word.  In 
the  introductory  note,  he  speaks  of  having 
borrowed  two  situations  from  Heyse's 
"Maria  von  Magdala."  The  text  contains 


*Maeterlinck  later  added  to  his  play  a  scene  deal- 
ing with  the  Palace  of  Happiness  where  Mytyl  and 
Tyltyl  see  such  abstractions  as  Being  Rich,  Satisfied 
Vanity,  Eating,  Drinking  and  Fat  Laughter — all  of 
them  disagreeable  Luxuries — scattered  to  the  Cave 
of  Miseries,  and  in  their  places  appear  such  Happi- 
nesses as  Home,  Being  Good,  Loving  One's  Parents 
and  Innocent  Thoughts,  and  such  Great  Joys  as 
Being  Just,  Understanding  and  Mother  Love. 

272 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

the  usual  wisdom  of  Maeterlinck;  it  deals 
with  the  salvation  of  Mary,  who,  from  a 
courtesan,  becomes  a  spiritualized  follower 
of  the  Master.  The  Romans  accuse  her  of 
loving  the  Christ  in  a  worldly  fashion;  in 
their  pagan  souls  they  cannot  see  the  new 
light  shining  in  her  eyes.  Only  the  voice 
of  the  Master  is  heard,  and  his  spoken 
word  is  the  word  of  the  Bible.  In  the  end, 
Mary  Magdalene  is  told  that  she  may  save 
the  Christ  provided  she  give  herself  to  the 
Roman  who  loves  her  and  who  has  the 
crucifixion  journey  in  charge.  But  though 
she  hears  the  crowds  outside  on  their  way 
to  Calvary,  Mary  stands  motionless  in 
ecstasy.  It  is  a  great  dramatic  moment, 
but  the  only  moment  in  the  play.  And 
because  of  this,  it  fails  in  its  vital  interest.* 

*It  was  published  in  1910,  and  has  been  played  at 
the  Deutsches  Theater  in  Berlin.  It  has  also  been 
given  productions  in  Russia  and  France.  The  New 
York  production  took  place  at  the  New  Theatre 
during  the  season  of  1910-11,  Olga  Nethersole  to- 
tally misconceiving  the  spiritual  love-motive  of  the 
character.  See  Bookman,  32 :4ig-2i ;  Bookman, 
32:602-4  (C.  Hamilton). 

273 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

Maeterlinck  is  one  of  the  big  forces  in 
modern  drama.  But  if  we  examine  closely, 
we  will  see  that  his  originality  came  in  the 
dramas  that  are  least  suited  for  stage  pro- 
duction. It  was  his  utilization  of  forces 
never  before  handled  atmospherically  that 
stamped  his  technique  at  once  as  individual. 
And  his  iconoclasm,  if  we  may  call  a  con- 
structive philosopher  iconoclastic,  lies  in 
the  spiritual  progressiveness  of  the  individ- 
ual. To  him,  the  whole  social  fabric  is  de- 
pendent upon  the  full  awakening  of  the 
soul.  Maeterlinck,  the  dramatist,  is,  after 
all,  the  philosopher  at  play.  Yet  even 
play  to  Maeterlinck  is  a  serious  thing.* 

^Maeterlinck's  whole  service  to  the  theatre  would 
include  his  activity  as  a  translator.  In  1895,  he  pre- 
pared Webster's  "  "Tis  a  Pity  She's  a  Whore"  for 
the  Theatre  de  1'CEuvre  (Ollendorff,  1895),  under 
the  title  of  "Annabella,"  and,  in  1908,  translated 
"Macbeth"  in  a  fashion  comparable  to  the  best  of 
the  Shakespearean  translations  made  by  Schwob. 
This  version  of  "Macbeth"  was  published  in  L'  Illus- 
tration. See  "Realization  of  'Macbeth,' "  Inde- 
pendent, 67:644-49  (A.  F.  Sanborn)  ;  "Maeterlinck 
Out-of-Doors,"  Harp.  Wk.,  54:12  (A.  F.  San- 
born)  ;  "  'Macbeth'  at  Saint- Wandrille,"  Fortn. 
92 :6os-i8  (Excellent)  ;  and  above  all,  see  "Tragedy 

274 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 


of  'Macbeth,'"  by  Maeterlinck,  Forum,  43:400-8; 
Fortn.,  93 :6g2-7oi.  As  to  the  method  of  transla- 
ting, we  learn  the  following  from  Madame  Maeter- 
linck : 

"We  work  by  day  in  the  marvellous  peace  of 
the  forest  of  Saint-Wandrille.  First,  Maeterlinck 
reads  a  phrase,  constructing  it  according  to  the 
French  form.  Then  he  repeats  it,  tearing  away  the 
French  garb  which  does  not  suit  it;  and  already  it 
makes  one  start.  It  hardly  appears,  yet  it  appears, 
beyond  the  form,  on  the  other  side,  as  it  were,  of 
the  word.  [She  knew  little  English;  Maeterlinck 
reads  but  cannot  speak  it.]  And  once  again  he 
repeats  it,  disjointing  more  and  more  the  first  sense 
that  had  presented  itself.  .  .  ." 

This  problem  of  translation  was  serious  to 
Maeterlinck.  He  writes : 

"The  humble  translators  face  to  face  with  Shakes- 
peare are  like  painters  seated  in  front  of  the  same 
forest,  the  same  seas,  on  the  same  mountain.  Each 
of  them  will  make  a  different  picture.  And  a 
translation  is  almost  as  much  an  etat  d'ame  as  is 
a  landscape.  Above,  below,  and  all  around  the 
literal  and  literary  sense  of  the  primitive  phrase, 
floats  a  secret  life  which  is  all  but  impossible  to 
catch,  and  which  is,  nevertheless,  more  important 
than  the  external  life  of  the  words  and  of  the 
images.  It  is  that  secret  life  which  it  is  important 
to  understand  and  to  reproduce  as  well  as  one  can. 
Extreme  prudence  is  required,  since  the  slightest 
false  note,  the  smallest  error,  may  destroy  the 
illusion  and  destroy  the  beauty  of  the  finest  page. 
It  excuses  in  advance  every  effort  of  the  kind,  even 
this  one,  which  comes  after  so  many  others,  and 
contributes  to  the  common  work  merely  the  very 
modest  aid  of  a  few  phrases  which  chance  may  now 
and  then  have  favored." 

Thus  does  Maeterlinck  set  the  standard  for  his 
own  translators. 

275 


CHAPTER  VIII 
MAURICE   MAETERLINCK:   PHILOSOPHER 


"As  a  poet,  he  [Maeterlinck]  delights  me  by 
the  deep  grace  and  the  meaning  of  his 
creations;  as  a  moralist,  he  abounds  in 
truths  on  the  soul  and  life  that  strike  me 
p-s  new,  and  that  I  listen  to  with  profound 
reverence.  .  .  .  I  have  never  met  M. 
Maeterlinck;  I  know  only  by  hearsay  that 
he  is  not  afflicted  with  neurasthenia  or 
neuropathy,  that  he  is  not  even  a  spinner 
of  niceties  after  the  manner  of  'des  Es- 
seintes,'  but  a  tall,  robust,  healthy  indi* 
vidual,  fond  of  every  form  of  sport,  with 
no  perverse  tastes,  no  'gamy'  ideas,  and 
who  seeks  sensations  only  where  these  may 
be  found  by  every  one." — EDOUARD  ROD. 


TO  those  who  have  read  the  simple  an- 
nals of  "Marie-Claire,"  it  is  easy  to 
understand  how  Maeterlinck  appealed  to 
the  author  of  this  delicate  transcript  from 
life.    He  is  not  difficult  of  understanding, 
277 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

even  though  the  fine  strands  of  his  ideal- 
ism are  rather  above  and  beyond  the  roar 
and  turmoil  of  modern  civilization.  He  is 
a  sage,  and  as  such  a  lover  of  solitude;  his 
interest  is  upon  all  things,  and  he  meas- 
ures their  value  according  to  the  impress 
they  make  upon  the  inner  development  of 
man.  He  has  passed  through  a  long 
training,  and  each  step  of  the  way  has 
been  marked  by  some  essay  which  repre- 
sents his  momentary  comment. 

It  is  almost  incumbent  upon  us  to  re- 
gard Maeterlinck,  the  philosopher,  in  an 
abstract  manner,  even  as  he  slipped  the 
personal  equation  in  writing  of  Ruys- 
broeck,  Novalis,  and  Emerson.  And  like 
a  subtle  aroma  his  theory  of  life  has  per- 
meated the  thinking  world,  forcing  the 
mind  back  into  a  consideration  of  the  mys- 
teries which  surround  it.  We  can  say  that 
in  his  dramatic  theory  Maeterlinck  has  in- 
fluenced the  younger  dramatists  of  Ger- 
278 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

many,*  and  that  most  especially  has  he 
been  an  inspiration  in  the  so-called  Uber- 
brettl'  movement.!  But  as  a  philosopher, 
he  is  simply  in  the  stream  of  evolution 
through  which  mysticism  has  been  passing 
since  the  days  of  Plato,  Plotinus,  St.  Ber- 
nard, Marcus  Aurelius,  Novalis,  Ruys- 
broeck,  Jakob  Boehme,  Swedenborg,  and 
Emerson. 

His  essays,  therefore,  represent  not  so 
much  a  system  of  philosophy  as  a  mode  of 
thinking;  they  represent  not  so  much  an 
attitude  toward  life  as  Maeterlinck's  at- 
titude toward  life.  He  is  a  mystic  who 
has  been  subjected  to  the  fires  of  scientific 
investigation,  and  his  idealism  is  not  so 
cold  that  it  lacks  the  common  appeal  for 
all.  Maeterlinck's  philosophy  is  no  dog- 
matic preachment;  he  has  no  creed  except 
that  which  has  come  out  of  his  innermost 

*See  Witkowski's  "German  Drama  of  the  I9th 
Century"  (Holt). 

tSee  Percival  Pollard's  "Masks  and  Minstrels  of 
New  Germany"  (Luce). 

279 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

consciousness,  yet  his  essays  are  full  of 
that  spirit  which  is  at  the  bottom  of  Chris- 
tianity. There  is  no  form  to  Maeter- 
linck's development  of  religious  belief.  We 
know  that  he  repudiated  the  Catholic 
faith,  and  immediately  set  forth  to  dis- 
cover. And  in  reading  Maeterlinck,  one 
feels  always  that  he  is  on  the  verge  of  a 
tremendous  revelation.  As  he  writes  in 
"Wisdom  and  Destiny,"  regarding  this 
revelation:  "We  should  be  ready  with 
welcome,  with  warmest  and  keenest  and 
fullest,  most  heartfelt  and  intimate  wel- 
come. And  whatever  the  form  it  shall 
take  on  the  day  that  it  comes  to  us,  the 
best  way  of  all  to  prepare  for  its  fitting 
reception  is  to  crave  for  it  now,  to  desire 
it  as  lofty,  as  perfect,  as  vast,  as  enno- 
bling as  the  soul  can  conceive."  Why  go 
afield,  thinking  that  the  force  of  Nature 
lies  beyond,  when,  after  all,  the  greatest 
study  of  mankind  is  man? 

Maeterlinck  is  not  new;  he  is  simply  a 
280 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

high,  a  rare  example  in  an  age  of  material 
advance.  He  reflects  Christianity,  since 
Christ  Himself  was  a  seer.  But  being  a 
mystic,  it  is  wrong  to  consider  Maeterlinck 
as  no  modernist.  No  one  has  been  more  in- 
fluenced by  science,  by  the  modern  attitude, 
than  he.  His  mode  of  expression  is  pure, 
and  it  is  his  calm  speech  that  holds  and 
fascinates.  He  is  particularly  alive  to 
every  shade  of  modern  thought,  and  he 
works  it  over  until  no  particle  of  the  com- 
mon clay  holds  to  it.  He  denudes  it  of 
everything  but  its  essence. 

It  might  almost  be  claimed  that  Mae- 
terlinck is  no  lover  of  man  in  the  special 
sense,  but  of  humanity  in  the  abstract.* 

*It  is  not  my  intention  to  examine  Maeterlinck's 
philosophy  comparatively  with  other  systems,  or 
even  with  the  "school"  whose  disciple,  in  part, 
he  is.  I  only  wish  to  reach  some  general  idea  of  his 
attitude  toward  life,  which  is  well  expressed  in  the 
essays.  I  have  read  articles  connecting  his  position 
with  Comte's  and  Spinoza's  attitudes.  I  have  heard 
arguments  which  showed  his  dependence  on  pragma- 
tism. See  Dr.  Ludwig  Sehring's  "Maeterlinck  als 
Philosoph  und  Dichter" ;  also  Edward  M.  Colic's 
Introduction  to  "The  Buried  Temple." 

28l 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

He  makes  no  worldly  distinctions,  but  at- 
tempts to  define  those  universal  forces 
toward  which  the  best  in  Nature  works. 
Because  of  this  he  has  a  message  for  all ; 
and  if  his  expression  has  beauty  in  it  rather 
than  strength,  his  philosophy  itself  calls 
for  strength  in  order  to  fulfill  its  man- 
dates. He  taps  the  very  heart  of  exist- 
ence, and  draws  from  it  secrets  that  are 
not  impossible. 

Matthew  Arnold,  in  that  beautiful  poem 
of  his  on  "The  Buried  Life,"  writes: 

"But  often,  in  the  world's  most  crowded  streets, 

But  often,  in  the  din  of  strife, 

There  rises  an  unspeakable  desire 

After  the  knowledge  of  our  buried  life; 

Athirst  to  spend  our  fire  and  restless  force 

In  tracking  out  our  true  original  course; 

A  longing  to  inquire 

Into  the  mystery  of  this  heart  which  beats 

So  wild,  so  deep  in  us — to  know 

Whence  our  lives  come  and  where  they  go. 

And  many  a  man  in  his  own  breast  then  delves, 

But  deep  enough,  alas !  none  ever  mines." 

To  my  mind,  this  is  the  intent  of  Mae- 
terlinck's philosophy;  he  penetrates  deep- 
er and  deeper,  and  his  mysticism  keeps  him 
282 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

always  in  the  way  of  mystery.  No  sooner 
does  he  clear  one  doubt,  than  a  higher 
problem  presents  itself  in  the  light  of  rich- 
er and  deeper  knowledge.  He  would  have 
people  satisfied  only  with  the  best;  he 
would  transmute  evil  into  good;  he  would 
make  life's  responsibility  the  realization  of 
the  most  ideal  character.  Even  as  science 
has  sought  in  every  way  to  control  Nature, 
so  Maeterlinck's  philosophy*  would  make 
man  master  of  his  own  fate.  "The  Bur- 
ied Temple"  is  full  of  Hellenic  philosophy 
of  this  kind. 

The  ideal  life,  therefore,  is  largely  the 
result  of  man's  effort  and  of  man's  desire; 
here  are  involved  a  consideration  of  mo- 
rality and  of  practical  existence.!  There 
are  three  aspects  of  Maeterlinck  that  find 

*See  "Maeterlinck's  Philosophy,"  A.  M.  Sholl, 
Gunton,  26 :46-5i ;  "Maurice  Maeterlinck  als  Philo- 
soph,"  Preuss.  Jahrbuch,  v.  99,  pp.  232-62,  Berlin, 
1900. 

f'Maeterlinck  as  Moralist,"  Algar  Thorold,  Indep. 
Rev.,  8:184-97;  "M.  Maurice  Maeterlinck,  Moralist 
and  Artisi,"  Edin.  Rev.,  193 :35O-77,  April,  1901 ; 
Liv.  Age,  231  -.201-20. 

283 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

expression  in  his  essays :  the  scientific  which 
tempers  the  enthusiasm  of  his  mysticism; 
the  intellectual  which  is  tempered  by  the 
mystic;  and  the  spiritual  which  changes 
experience  of  a  practical  kind  into  the 
ideal.  He  is  not  afraid  but  careful;  he  is 
not  doubtful  but  reticent.  His  obscurity, 
if  it  may  be  called  so,  partakes  of  the  il- 
lusiveness  of  the  substance  he  examines. 
He  strikes  one  as  being  intensely  concern- 
ed with  the  mystery  of  life,  and  the  fact 
that  he  is  now  identified  with  a  tone  of  ex- 
pression is  indication  of  its  having  become 
a  part  of  him.  To  Maeterlinck,  life  is  an 
open  book  for  all  to  examine,  and  it  is  the 
moral  obligation  placed  upon  all  that  they 
do  examine  it.  Thorold  writes : 

"Life,  the  actual  tale  of  days  of  men 
and  women,  working  in  fields  and  cities, 
in  courts  and  camps,  at  home  and  abroad 
'on  perilous  seas,  forlorn,'  has  laid  on  him 
the  fascination  of  its  touch.  It  is  in  this 
actuality,  this  nearness  to  experience,  that 
284 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

his  value  consists.  He  probes  into  the 
moral  fact  as  we  find  it  in  our  common 
human  nature,  unconcerned  with  its  meta- 
physical justification,  and  frankly  admit- 
ting that  our  present  knowledge  does  not 
enable  us  demonstrably  to  relate  it  to  the 
rest  of  the  Cosmos." 

We  have  already  touched  upon  the  gen- 
eral character  of  Maeterlinck's  philoso- 
phy as  revealed  in  his  plays ;  his  prose  work 
is  simply  a  more  complete  expression  of 
the  same  belief  and  of  the  same  attitude. 
Maeterlinck  always  strikes  me  as  a  man 
who  gives  forth,  sometimes  emotionally,  at 
other  times  searchingly,  what  he  has  learn- 
ed after  calm  study.  There  is  nothing  false 
about  him,  nothing  assertive.  He  grows, 
and  he  is  constantly  learning.  He  never 
rests  content,  however,  with  the  emotional 
factor,  but  is  always  looking  behind,  not  in 
order  to  unsettle,  but  in  order  to  make 
sure  that  he  is  on  firm  foundation.  Mae- 
terlinck's essays  are  themselves  measures 
285 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

of  his  growth  in  mind  and  spirit.  There 
are  some  who  accuse  him  of  sacrificing  the 
absolute  scientific  truth  for  a  theory  or  for 
the  beauty  of  a  literary  style;  there  are 
some,  even,  who  would  be  tempted  to  point 
to  his  "The  Life  of  the  Bee"  and  'The  In- 
telligence  of  Flowers"  as  examples  of  his 
Nature-faking.  But  Maeterlinck's  style, 
more  lucid  than  Emerson's,  is  the  natural 
expression  of  a  calm  spirit  that,  having 
seen  the  scientific  fact,  dares  to  temper  it 
for  his  spiritual  use. 

Maeterlinck  is  now  thoroughly  a  part 
of  the  mystic  atmosphere  in  which  he  finds 
himself.  We  have  to  accept  his  altitude 
or  else  discard  him.  For,  according  to 
Maeterlinck's  view:  "He  will  be  far  less 
exposed  to  disaster  who  cherishes  ideas 
within  him  that  soar  high  above  the  indif- 
ference, selfishness,  vanities  of  everyday 
life."  And  so  he  has  reached  that  height 
after  serving  as  disciple,  and  some  of  his 
286 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

first  essay  work  was  done  in  the  interests 
of  the  masters  he  served. 


II 


His  first  task  was  a  translation  from  the 
Flemish  of  Ruysbroeck  L'Admirable's 
"L'Ornement  des  Noces  Spirituelles" 
(1891),  for  which  he  wrote  an  introduc- 
tion,* in  which  is  to  be  found  the  confes- 
sion that  the  translation  was  done  for  the 
express  purpose  of  giving  satisfaction  to 
those  followers  of  Plato,  those  neo-Plato- 
nians,  among  whom  he  counted  himself. 
In  preparation  for  the  task,  he  laboured 
through  the  German  of  Novalis's  "Les 
Disciples  a  SaTs"  and  "Les  Fragments," 
both  of  which  he  was  next  to  translate 
(1895),  through  the  "Biographia  Lit- 
teraria"  of  Coleridge,  the  "Timaeus"  of 

*In  part,  this  introduction  is  included  in  the 
French  edition  of  "Tresor  des  Humbles,"  but  not  in 
the  English  translation  In  fact  it  has  not  been 
translated  into  English. 

287 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

Plato,  the  "Enneads"  of  Plotinus,  Saint- 
Denys'  "Divine  Names,"  and  Jacob 
Boehme's  "Aurora."  As  he  confesses, 
Ruysbroeck's*  book  has  neither  ordinary 
air  nor  ordinary  light,  and  requires 
preparation  for  its  understanding;  it  is 
written  almost  as  an  exact  science, 
and,  like  all  exact  sciences,  needs  pro- 
found instruction.  It  is  a  tremendous 
mandate:  "Know  Thyself,"  and  it  is 
said  in  "Wisdom  and  Destiny"  that 
"nothing  befalls  us  that  is  not  of  the  na- 
ture of  ourselves."  Hence,  we  are  virtu- 
ally our  own  masters  regarding  the  facing 
of  events;  the  soul  should  be  big  enough 
to  rise  above  events.  Ruysbroeck,  Emer- 
son, and  Maeterlinck  are  only  mile-posts 
in  the  science  of  such  living.  One  is  liable 
to  lose  patience  with  the  mystic  simply 
because  he  lives  in  a  rarefied  atmosphere, 

*Ruysbroeck  was  prior  of  the  Abbey  of  Groenen- 
dale,  near  Brussels,  and  was  born  in  1293.  Many 
of  his  writings  are  preserved  in  his  own  hand.  Of 
this  time  also  was  Thomas  Aquinas. 

288 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

mediaeval  mystic  especially — but 
Maeterlinck  is  not  anaemic  on  the  heights. 
What  is  interesting  about  this  introduc- 
tion, for  our  purposes,  is  the  light  it 
throws  upon  Maeterlinck's  own  knowl- 
edge of  the  subject  as  it  is  found  in  the 
writings  of  the  Greeks  and  of  the  seers  of 
the  Far  East — platonism,  sufism,  brah- 
manism,  and  buddhism.  Maeterlinck  has 
caught  from  Ruysbroeck  his  love  of  silence 
and  of  shadow.* 

"If  I  have  translated  this,"  writes  Mae- 
terlinck, "it  is  solely  because  I  believe  that 
the  mystics  are  the  present  jewels  in  all  the 
prodigious  treasures  of  humanity.  .  .  . 
Mystical  truths  have  this  strange  superior- 
ity over  truths  of  the  ordinary  kind,  that 
they  know  neither  age  nor  death.  There 
is  not  a  truth  which  has  not  descended  on 


*See  "Ruysbroeck  and  Maeterlinck"  by  William 
Sharp,  Academy,  March  16,  1895.  The  work  was 
first  published  in  1891,  and  has  recently  been  re- 
issued. Other  translations  of  Ruysbroeck  are  those 
by  Ernest  Hello  and  J.  T.  Stoddart. 

289 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

the  world  one  morning,  marvellous  in  its 
youth  and  strength,  and  arrayed  with  the 
fresh  and  wonderful  hue  appropriate  to 
those  things  which  have  never  before  been 
uttered;  traverse  now  the  infirmaries  of 
the  human  soul,  where  all  these  truths 
come  at  length  to  die,  and  you  will  not 
find  there  a  single  mystical  thought.  They 
possess  the  immensity  of  Swedenborg's 
angels,  whiclTprogress  continually  towards 
the  springtime  of  their  youth,  so  that  the 
eldest  angels  always  appear  the  youngest." 
A  mystic  thought*  is  one  that  pierces 
the  innermost  secrets  of  existence,  and  one 
might  almost  believe,  after  reading  Mae- 
terlinck's introductions  to  "L'Ornement 
des  Noces  Spirituelles"  and  to  "Les  Dis- 
ciples a  Sai's"  that  it  takes  a  mystic  to  catch 
a  mystic.  For  Maeterlinck  is  not  so  in- 
terested in  the  external  events  marking 

*A  popular  bibliography  on  mysticism  is  to  be 
found  in  the  Independent,  July  29,  1909,  p.  251.  See 
Vaughan's  "English  Mystics" ;  "Mysticism  of 
Maurice  Maeterlinck,"  Jane  T.  Stoddart,  Bookman 
(London),  38:21-24. 

290 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

the  existence  of  the  man  as  in  the  idea 
which  brings  him  nearer  to  universal  truth. 
Maeterlinck  here  shows  how  much  he  is 
indebted  to  the  mystics;  he  has  himself 
been  through  a  rigid  school  of  prepara- 
tion, and  to  trace  his  development  would 
mean  to  trace  the  whole  movement  of 
platonism  and  mysticism.  He  is  a  wide 
reader  and  a  profound  one,  as  these  in- 
troductions will  show.  And  his  books  to 
follow  are  simply  the  outcome  of  his  stud- 
ies, acted  upon  by  his  healthy  and  exqui- 
site personality,  as  well  as  by  the  spirit  of 
the  times  in  which  he  lives. 


Ill 


Emerson  was  Maeterlinck's  greatest  in- 
fluence, though  in  his  essays  Marcus  Au- 
relius,  whom  he  has  defined  as  thought 
itself,  is  more  often  quoted.  He  contrib-, 
uted  an  introduction  to  Mile.  Mali's  trans- 
291 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

lation  of  seven  of  Emerson's  essays* 
(1894),  and  therein  one  may  easily  detect 
the  impress  of  "The  Over-Soul."  Com- 
menting upon  the  saying  of  Novalis  that 
"only  one  thing  matters,  the  quest  of  the 
transcendental  self,"  Maeterlinck  writes: 
"We  live  only  by  virtue  of  the  transcen- 
dental existence  whose  acts  and  thoughts 
pierce  at  every  moment  the  envelope  that 
closes  us  about."  To  him  the  science  of 
human  grandeur  is  the  strangest  of 
sciences,  and  always  he  finds  this  human 
grandeur  in  the  lowest  as  in  the  highest. 
For  it  is  not  intellect  alone  that  satisfies; 
at  times  the  farmer  is  as  significant  as 
Plato,  Socrates,  and  Marcus  Aurelius;  the 
radiant  presence  speaks  only  in  silence. 

"These  were:  "Self-Reliance";  "Compensation"; 
"Spiritual  Laws";  "The  Poet";  "Character";  "The 
Over-Soul" ;  "Fate."  Mile.  Mali's  nom  de  plume 
was  I.  Will.  Miss  Emerson  makes  mention  of  this 
translation.  See  Hamilton  Osgood's  "Maeterlinck 
ana  Emerson,"  Arena,  March,  1896,  15:563-73; 
'translation  of  Maeterlinck's  essay  on  Emerson  in 
Poet-Lore,  Jan.-Mar.,  1898,  10  -.76-34.  For  the 
original  French  of  the  essay,  see  "Tresor  des 
Humbles." 

292 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

For,  as  Emerson  says:  "A  man  is  the  fa- 
c.ade  of  a  temple,  wherein  all  wisdom  and 
all  good  abide.  What  we  commonly  call 
man, — the  eating,  drinking,  planting, 
counting  man, — does  not,  as  we  know  him, 
represent  himself,  but  misrepresent  him- 
self. Him  we  do  not  respect ;  but  the  soul, 
whose  organ  he  is,  would  he  let  it  appear 
through  his  action,  would  make  our  knees 
bend."  And  he  continues  thus:  "When  it 
breathes  through  his  intellect,  it  is  genius; 
when  it  breathes  through  his  will,  it  is  vir- 
tue; when  it  flows  through  his  affection,  it 
is  love."  Hence  Maeterlinck's  conviction 
that  it  is  not  the  man  we  know,  but  his  soul. 
In  Emerson,  Maeterlinck  recognizes  the 
hope  of  the  humble.  Philosophers  like 
Swedenborg,  Pascal,  Novalis,  and  Hello 
are  too  far  away  from  common  sympathy. 
Goethe,  Marcus  Aurelius,  and  Carlyle 
wander  afield  with  the  soul.  But  Emerson, 
"the  good  morning  shepherd  of  pale 
meadows,"  remains  in  the  familiar  fold, 
293 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

and  breathes  confidence  in  the  mystery. 
The  little  moments  in  life  may  seem  to 
count  as  nought,  but  they  constitute  life 
itself  in  the  end,  and  we  should  learn  to 
reverence  them.  That  is  what  Emerson 
teaches,  and  hence  the  truth  in  the  title 
Maeterlinck  applies  to  him,  "the  sage  of 
commonplace  days." 


IV 


Maeterlinck  is  one  with  Carlyle  in  the 
matter  of  silence;*  when  a  person  speaks, 
he  protects  his  soul  from  discovery.  As 
soon  as  speech  ceases,  the  soul  steps  forth. 
It  takes  moral  and  spiritual  bigness  to  be 
silent.  This  speechless  moment  may  oc- 
cur to  one  any  day,  even  as  any  day  the 
soul  may  add  to  itself  that  which  contains 
the  secret  of  life.  The  healthy  significance 

*"The  Treasure  of  the  Humble"  was  published  in 
1896  (Societe  du  Mercure  de  France).  See  Academy, 
May  i,  1897,  p.  465;  Sewanee  Rev.,  3:276;  Walkley's 
introduction  to  the  English  translation. 

294 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

of  Maurice  Maeterlinck  lies  in  his  belief 
that  we  are  nearing  a  spiritual  crisis,  and 
that  in  our  everyday  existence  it  draws 
close  to  us.  We  are  amidst  occult  powers, 
and  we  are  thoroughly  conscious  of  them, 
for  they  are  attacking  orthodox  faith. 
Maeterlinck  is  humble  before  the  awaken- 
ing of  the  soul,  and  he  stands  with  the 
lowliest,  expectant.  For,  as  he  says :  "The 
peasant,  to  whom  the  power  of  expres- 
sing that  which  lies  in  his  soul  should  sud- 
denly be  given,  would  at  this  moment  pour 
forth  ideas  that  were  not  yet  in  the  soul  of 
Racine."  Thus  could  we  grasp  our  spirit- 
ual advance  over  any  other  age  to  which 
a  revelation  of  relative  truth  has  become 
manifest.  With  this  awakening  of  the 
soul  we  are  being  drawn  closer  together 
because  of  the  disappearance  of  useless 
convention. 

Maeterlinck  would  pierce  the  veil  of 
thought;  he  would  examine  into  all  of  the 
events  that  lie  in  wait  for  us;  he  would 
295 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

determine  whether  we  attract  death,  or 
whether  death  lures  us.  We  are  dimly 
conscious  of  our  real  life  that  comes  to  us 
only  at  rare  moments,  and  never  more  so 
are  we  aware  of  the  superior  life  than 
when  we  feel  the  predestined  near  us.  We 
call  it  superstition  when  we  hear  some  one 
declare  a  child  to  be  marked  for  death. 
We  do  not  fear  this  truth,  but  none  the 
less  do  we  believe  that  there  is  some  truth 
in  it. 

Facts  will  in  no  way  illustrate  the  spirit- 
ual truth  that  we  only  dimly  realize;  we 
are  dealing  with  the  soul  which,  though  in- 
tangible, is  none  the  less  alive,  and  subject 
to  spiritual  laws  as  our  body  is  amenable 
to  physical  laws.  Hence,  there  is  a  mystic 
morality  as  there  is  a  social  morality.  We 
must  study  the  sensibility  of  this  soul  of 
ours;  we  must  strive  to  understand  its  ex- 
pression and  its  reticence.  The  soul  soars 
high  above  contamination;  it  even  soars 
above  the  inner  life  which  Maeterlinck 
296 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

discusses.  For  there  are  three  kingdoms, 
that  of  the  human,  that  of  the  psychic,  and 
that  of  the  divine.  There  are  degrees  of 
spiritual  consciousness,  and  degrees  of 
spiritual  action.  Mystic  morality,  there- 
fore, deals  with  the  action  of  the  soul. 

Holding  such  beliefs  as  these,  Maeter- 
linck rapidly  reached  his  conclusions  re- 
garding the  tragical  in  daily  life,  and  out 
of  the  humble,  amidst  our  active  silence, 
he  would  frame  a  drama.  Such  was  the 
basis  for  his  marionette  theory.  One  can 
understand  Maeterlinck's  static  theatre 
which  implies  an  active  philosophy.  Every- 
thing we  do,  everything  we  read,  has  its 
unexpressed  secret.  That  is  its  static  sig- 
nificance. 

But  because  this  inner  quality  is  not 
visible  to  any  but  the  eyes  of  the  soul,  its 
use  is  impracticable  without  pictorial 
adjuncts  that  advance  with  every  change 
of  inward  feeling.  Having  wakened  his 
old  man  before  a  lighted  lamp  to  the  exist- 
297 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

ence  of  mysteries  surrounding  him,  he  next 
proceeds  to  go  in  search  of  destiny,  and 
to  face  it.  And  though  in  his  essay  on 
"The  Star"  he  points  to  certain  destinies 
which  are  decided,  and  which  no  will  may 
change,  yet  he  asks  the  question  which  con- 
cerns the  soul  in  its  varying  development 
— a  question  involving  his  assertion  in 
"Wisdom  and  Destiny"  that  "we  become 
that  which  we  discover  in  the  sorrows  and 
joys  that  befall  us."  For  he  writes: 
"When  the  same  sorrow  knocks  at  two  ad- 
joining doors,  at  the  houses  of  the  just  and 
the  unjust,  will  its  method  of  action  be 
identical  in  both?"* 

Maeterlinck's  philosophy  has  inner  ac- 
tion. His  eyes  do  not  ignore  the  physical 
fact ;  they  penetrate  and  look  beyond.  In 
life  he  recognizes  an  invisible  goodness, 
an  inner  beauty;  and,  being  a  mystic,  he 
recognizes  a  deeper  life  than  mere  exist- 

*Herein    we   detect    the   seeds    for    "The    Buried 
Temple"  and  "Wisdom  and  Destiny." 

298 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

ence.  He  is  spiritually  brave  and  is  con- 
stantly appealing  to  the  spiritual  bravery 
of  others.  Often  we  are  not  just  because 
we  fear  the  force  that  cries  for  justice; 
often  we  are  not  good  because  we  do  not 
divine  the  natural  yearnings  of  the  soul. 
But  we  all  have  the  potentiality.  And 
where  Maeterlinck's  optimism  is  of  such 
potent  force  rests  in  its  infinite  reaches. 
The  most  ideal  social  justice,  the  most 
ideal  social  goodness  will  develop  only 
after  we  have  learned  to  live  close  to  our 
soul. 

Life,  in  the  Maeterlinckean  sense,  does 
not  begin  with  birth ;  nor  is  one  born  only 
once.  But  we  are  truly  born  when  we, 
however  humble,  "feel  at  the  deepest  of 
us  that  there  is  something  grave  and  unex- 
pected in  life."  Each  advance  in  the  awak- 
ening of  our  soul  means  another  birth. 
Here  is  hope,  but  it  calls  for  courage.  The 
springs  of  life  are  far  down,  and  they  ex- 
299 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

hibit  a  beauty  far  more  beautiful  than  the 
eye  can  see.  For  the  soul  has  power  to 
create  beauty,  and  the  degree  of  beauty 
depends  upon  the  degree  to  which  the  soul 
is  developed. 

Such  thoughts  as  I  have  here  epitomized 
constitute  Maeterlinck's  "The  Treasure 
of  the  Humble."  They  invite  the  mind  in 
pure  channels,  and  they  exact  exercise. 
One  can  read  Maeterlinck  and  remain 
static,  but  if  this  be  so,  then  one  does  not 
truly  understand  Maeterlinck.  It  is  no 
mild  philosophy  that  he  upholds;  yet,  on 
the  other  hand,  it  would  be  difficult  of 
practice  by  him  upon  whom  social  condi- 
tion had  laid  a  heavy  hand.  "Wouldst 
thou  be  as  these  are,  live  as  they,"  sings 
Matthew  Arnold.  Such  philosophy  is  good 
food  for  the  starving  soul,  but  I  doubt 
whether  its  beneficent  light  would  be  wel- 
comed in  the  dark  hut  where  bread  and 
meat  were  wanting. 

300 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 


Maeterlinck  analyzes  to  the  very  depths 
of  abstraction ;  his  vista  is  an  infinite  num- 
ber of  rooms  to  eternity.  In  his  progress 
forward  he  has  never  retrograded.  And 
though  he  analyze  away  the  idea  of  an 
infallible  Judge,  he  argues  himself  back 
again  into  a  better  conception  of  divine 
justice.  Nature  is  nowhere  a  dispenser  of 
justice;  it  makes  no  difference  what  the 
moral  behind  a  cause,  this  moral  will  in  no 
way  influence  the  effect.  That  Superior 
Justice  which  we  have  treasured,  the  illu- 
sions of  the  past,  the  sterile  hopes  held 
forth  by  our  old  faith — all  these  must 
now  be  discarded,  and  we  must  let  nothing 
interfere  in  our  search  for  the  truth.* 

Relieved,  therefore,  of  superfluous 
beliefs,  we  start  out  determined  on  this 

"The  Buried  Temple"  was  first  published  in  1896; 
"Wisdom  and  Destiny"  in  1898.  See  Critic,  42:76-77; 
Atheneum,  1902,  2:276;  Academy,  Oct  29,  1898, 
P-  147- 

301 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

truth.  Justice  is  a  thing  man-made;  injus- 
tice is  a  thing  man-made.  For  asons  and 
aeons  we  have  shifted  the  responsibility  up- 
on a  god  of  our  desire,  whereas  in  the  soul 
is  found  the  seat  of  justice.  Maeterlinck  is 
of  the  belief  that  a  mystery  rarely  disap- 
pears, and  he  rejoices  that  in  modern  life 
we  have  gained  in  the  shifting  of  this  mys- 
tery from  the  god  of  our  superstition  and 
fear  to  life  itself.  Since  mystery  cannot  be 
destroyed,  man's  object  should  be  to  refine 
to  the  most  vital  mysteries.  Once  more, 
he  begins  with  man  as  the  centre  of  this 
problem  of  the  divine.  The  justice  of 
things  is  in  us.  Maeterlinck  warns  us  to  be 
careful  of  our  indiscriminate  use  of  the 
word  inevitable. 

In  fact,  if  something  big  in  our  belief 
snaps,  we  should  never  show  sorrow,  for 
it  indicates  that  we  are  holding  to  truths 
that  are  no  longer  true.  "It  is  our  duty," 
writes  Maeterlinck,  "and  one  we  dare  not 
renounce,  to  prepare  homes  for  truths  that 
302 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

shall  come,  to  maintain  in  good  order  the 
forces  destined  to  serve  them,  and  to  cre- 
ate open  spaces  within  us."  And  we  note 
how  much  he  advanced  in  his  theory  of 
drama  when  he  averred  that  "the  truth  that 
is  undoubtedly  truest  from  the  human 
point  of  view  must  evidently  appeal  to  us 
more  than  the  truth  which  is  truest  from 
the  universal  point  of  view."  Whatever 
mystifies  us,  we  identify  largely  with  fa- 
tality, and  now  Maeterlinck,  once  a  believ- 
er in  fatalism,  repudiates  such  explana- 
tions. There  is  much  in  his  analysis  of 
"The  Evolution  of  Mystery"  that  per- 
tains to  drama. 

"The  Buried  Temple"  deals  with  those 
forces  pointing  to  Maeterlinck,  the  mystic, 
and  Maeterlinck,  the  scientist ;  for  he  is  an 
evolutionist  in  both  instances,  and  there  is 
no  form  that  may  not  be  on  the  eve  of 
change.  That  is  his  opinion  regarding  the 
kingdom  of  matter.  For,  as  an  illustra- 
tion of  how  earnestly,  how  persistently,  he 
303 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

awaits  the  next  move,  we  quote  the  closing 
of  his  consideration  of  matter.  He  says: 

"Our  brains  and  nerves  of  to-day  are 
due  to  fearful  hordes  of  swimming  or  fly- 
ing reptiles.  These  obeyed  the  order  of 
their  life.  They  did  what  they  had  to  do. 
They  modified  matter  in  the  fashion  pre- 
scribed to  them.  And  we,  by  carrying  par- 
ticles of  this  same  matter  to  the  degree  of 
extraordinary  incandescence  proper  to  the 
thought  of  man,  shall  surely  establish  in 
the  future  something  that  never  shall  per- 
ish." 

Maeterlinck  animates  the  past  as  he 
vitalizes  the  future;  as  our  past  has  been, 
so  is  our  present,  so  will  our  future  be. 
But  this  past  is  malleable,  and  we  must  be 
master  of  it,  else  we  confess  that  our 
moral  growth  is  weak.  Out  of  the  past 
Maeterlinck  has  come,  full  blooded,  and 
looking  for  the  truth. 

To  have  arrived  at  the  point  where  wis- 
dom knows  when  to  exercise  will  in  the 
304 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

control  of  destiny,  has  been  a  wonderful 
phase  of  Maurice  Maeterlinck's  develop- 
ment, and  very  largely  has  the  analysis  of 
"Wisdom  and  Destiny"  convinced  him  of 
his  course.  We  have  spoken  of  the  sage 
in  the  marionette  dramas  and  in  the  plays 
of  a  later  period,  but  after  reading  this 
book,  we  then  know  the  true  value  of  a 
sage.  We  realize  for  the  first  time  how 
rigorous  the  mandate :  Know  Thyself.  For 
to  quote,  "he  is  wise  who  at  last  sees  in 
suffering  only  the  light  that  it  sheds  on  his 
soul;  and  whose  eyes  never  rest  on  the 
shadow  it  casts  upon  those  who  have  sent 
it  towards  him."  Reason  is  not  wisdom; 
but  he  is  wise  who  allows  his  reason  to  be 
guided  by  wisdom.  It  was  after  living  in 
such  rarefied  altitudes  of  thought  as  these 
that  Maeterlinck  began  to  insist  upon  the 
necessity  for  living  the  normal  life,  ad- 
vancing fearlessly  but  slowly,  and  biding 
one's  time  rather  than  compromising,  as 
Peer  Gynt  did,  or  annihilating  oneself,  as 
305 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

Brand  did  in  his  cry  for  all  or  nothing. 
I  should  say  that  whereas  "Wisdom  and 
Destiny"  is  an  excellent  beginning  for  the 
comprehension  of  Maeterlinck's  life  de- 
mands, it  is  the  least  systematic  of  his 
books.  "The  Buried  Life"  is  a  profound- 
er  work,  inasmuch  as  the  life  factors  in  it 
are  more  clearly  defined  in  their  relation 
to  the  modern  world.  "Wisdom  and  Des- 
tiny" is  more  a  precept  than  any  of  Mae- 
terlinck's other  essays.  It  has  beauty  and 
eloquence,  while  "The  Buried  Life"  has 
more  largeness.  Maeterlinck's  sweetness 
and  light  have  never  obscured  his  force; 
they  have  opened  a  way,  as  his  dramas  did 
in  the  theatre,  for  the  unknown  to  become 
accessible  to  man's  inward  scrutiny.  The 
sage  exists  only  where  the  soul  is  aflame 
with  the  golden  glow  of  truth,  and  this 
golden  glow  abides  only  at  the  heart  of  all 
virtue.  For,  as  he  says,  "the  more  clear 
ideas  we  possess,  the  more  do  we  learn  to 
respect  those  that  as  yet  are  still  vague." 
306 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 
VI 

Maeterlinck,  the  scientist,  is  only  Mae- 
terlinck, the  poet,  affected  by  science,  and  I 
would  rather  trust  to  his  very  acute  obser- 
vation, retaining  the  charm  and  grace  that 
he  has,  than  feel  that  his  sources  were  all 
first  hand  and  that  his  conclusions  were 
evolved  from  the  laboratory.  There  are 
some  who  quarrel  with  him  because  his 
vocabulary  is  not  scientific;  because  he  does 
not  falter  in  his  expression  over  points  that 
have  proven  disconcerting  to  biologists. 
What  Maeterlinck  does  is  to  view  the 
world  of  Nature  in  a  human  way,  and  it 
may  be  that  in  his  human  nature  he  over- 
steps scientific  truth.  M.  Gaston  Bonnier, 
among  other  unscientific  examples  gleaned 
from  "La  Vie  des  Abeilles,"  calls  atten- 
tion to  the  fact  that  though  Maeterlinck 
speaks  of  the  heart  of  the  bee,  in  reality 
the  bee  has  no  heart.  Yet  I  feel,  after 
reading  Maeterlinck  and  after  enjoying 
307 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

the  spirit  of  his  scientific  observation,  how- 
ever popular,  however  inexact,  that  he 
has  come  very  near  to  the  richest  way  of 
observing  Nature.  To  reconcile  science 
and  poetry,  there  is,  nevertheless,  no  need 
to  be  false  to  either,  though  I  am  inclined 
to  agree  with  John  Burroughs,  who,  col- 
lecting a  Nature  anthology  of  poetry  sub- 
jected to  the  rigorous  exactions  of  science, 
dared  include  Keats's  unscientific  "Ode  to 
a  Nightingale,"  because,  where  there  was 
such  poetry,  one  could  afford  to  lose  the 
bird! 

In  his  writing,  Maeterlinck  does  not 
pose  as  a  scientist,  though  he  has  read  ex- 
tensively in  science.  He  did  not  set  out  to 
write  a  treatise  on  apiculture  in  "The 
Life  of  the  Bee,"  but  made  use  of  a  phe- 
nomenon of  Nature  to  explain  the  phe- 
nomenon of  man.  And  when  one  is 
through  reading  it,  though  the  exact 
knowledge  may  be  limited,  the  romance  of 
the  subject  has  been  vividly  impressed 
308 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

upon  one.  Wherever  Maeterlinck  is 
doubtful  about  scientific  truth,  he  is  as 
doubtful  regarding  the  truth  of  life. 
Scientists  say  that  whenever  he  is  confused 
by  the  physical  fact,  he  covers  his  confu- 
sion by  a  mystical  word,  and  that  when- 
ever he  is  pleased  by  an  image  that  carries 
part  of  a  scientific  fact,  he  stretches  the 
image  too  far  and  utterly  destroys  the 
value  of  the  fact.  Bonnier,*  for  in- 
stance, disbelieves  the  theory  that  science 
can  be  reconciled  with  literary  expression, 
and  he  writes  that  Maeterlinck  "le  poete 
accorde  a  la  Nature  une  intelligence  su- 
perieure  a  celle  des  hommes, — comme  si 
les  hommes  ne  faisaient  pas  partie  de  la 
Nature" 


*"La  Science  chez  Maeterlinck,"  Gaston  Bonnier, 
La  Revue,  ser.  4,  69:448-57,  Paris,  1907.  "The  Life 
of  the  Bee"  was  published  in  1900.  "Tne  Wrath  of 
the  Bee"  is  found  in  "The  Double  Garden,"  and  "The 
Bee's  Homer"  was  published  in  The  Forum  (44  .-257- 
71)  for  September,  1910.  "The  Intelligence  of 
Flowers"  is  contained  in  "The  Measure  of  the 
Hours"  and  has  been  published  in  a  separate  booklet 
by  Dodd,  Mead  &  Company;  originally  appeared  in 

309 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

I  should  say  that  wherever  Maeterlinck 
desires  most  to  escape  the  strictures  of 
science,  he  goes  over  to  philosophical  spec- 
ulation. And  in  a  poetic  way,  he  is  as 
interesting  and  as  lucid  as  Huxley  was  in  a 
scientific  way.  The  method  is  somewhat 
the  same,  and  in  his  contemplation  of  scien- 
tific phenomena,  we  agree  with  M.  Rod 
when  he  says  that  "Maeterlinck  has  un- 
dertaken to  prove,  by  his  own  example, 
that  the  poet  was  mistaken,  and  that 
poetry  is  to  be  found  in  all  things,  or,  at 
least,  that  when  it  dwells  in  a  man's  heart 


Harp.  Mag.,  114:59,  465,  540.  In  "The  Measure  of 
the  Hours"  is  also  to  be  found  the  essay  on  "Per- 
fumes." In  "The  Double  Garden"  are  "Field 
Flowers,"  (Fortn.,  79:243-46),  "Chrysanthemums," 
(Century,  67:165-68),  and  "Old-Fashioned  Flowers," 

(1906)  [Outlook,    76:319-39].      See    the    collection 

(1907)  called    "Life    and    Flowers."      See    Franz 
Strunz's     "Ueber      Maeterlinck's      Intelligenz     der 
Blumen,"  Beitrage  u.  Skisscn  z.  Gesch.  dcr  Natur- 
wissenschaften,    pp.     185^92,    Hamburg,    1909;    also 
Joseph  Boubee's  "L'lntelligence  des  fleurs  d'apres  M. 
Maurice  Maeterlinck" ;  fitudes  p.  d.  pere  d.  1.  comp. 
d.  Jesus,  v.   113,  pp.  844-58,   Paris,   1907.     See  also 
Edouard  Rod's  critique  on  "The  Life  of  the  Bee," 
International  Q.,  5:431-47. 

310 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

or  mind,  he  can  cause  it  to  spring  from 
everything. 

In  his  essay  on  "In  an  Automobile" 
["The  Double  Garden"],  he  spiritualizes 
the  mechanical,  even  as  Kipling  did  in  a 
different  manner  in  "The  Ship  that  Found 
Herself."  And  the  latter's  fictional  treat- 
ment of  telepathy  in  "Wireless"  and 
"They"  reveals  the  mystic  using  a  new 
medium. 

VII 

Maeterlinck  infuses  into  his  "The  Life 
of  the  Bee"*  all  the  philosophy  of  "The 
Treasure  of  the  Humble,"  and  of  "Wis- 
dom and  Destiny,"  and  the  hive  becomes  a 
home  for  an  allegory  wherein  man  finds 
his  social  system  poignantly  treated.  And 

*"The  Life  of  the  Bee"  has  been  criticized  in  the 
following  periodicals:  Black-wood,  169:860-62; 
Athenaeum,  1901,  i  :?~5o;  Nation,  72:517;  Independent, 
53:I379-8o;  Fortn.,  76:167-69  (S.  Gwynne)  ;  Book- 
man, 13:564-66;  Book  Buyer,  23:115-17;  Arena, 
27:381-86.  See  "The  Wrath  of  the  Bee,"  Harp., 
105:467-69;  "In  the  Hive,"  Fortn.,  75:465-75. 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

at  the  close,  after  he  has  done  with  his 
long  analogies,  Maeterlinck  writes: 

"The  bees  know  not  whether  they  will 
eat  the  honey  they  harvest,  as  we  know  not 
who  it  is  shall  reap  the  profit  of  the  cere- 
bral substance  we  shall  have  formed,  or 
of  the  intelligent  fluid  that  issues  there- 
from and  spreads  over  the  universe,  per- 
ishing when  our  life  ceases  or  persisting 
after  death.  As  they  go  from  flower  to 
flower,  collecting  more  honey  than  them- 
selves and  their  offspring  can  need,  let  us 
go  from  reality  to  reality  seeking  food  for 
the  incomprehensible  flame,  and  thus,  cer- 
tain of  having  fulfilled  our  organic  duty, 
preparing  ourselves  for  whatever  befall." 

I  would  even  go  further  than  Rod  and 
say  that  Maeterlinck's  observation  of  ani- 
mals is  not  only  unique,  but  that  his  consid- 
eration of  flowers  is  also  the  most  uncom- 
non.  The  view  is  always  human,  and,  if  not 
sexual,  it  is  social.  But  in  no  case  is  it  lit- 
312 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

eral,  and  it  has  an  atmosphere  all  its  own, 
like  the  breath  of  old-fashioned  flowers. 

"The  Measure  of  the  Hours"  and  "The 
Double  Garden"  continue  his  mystic  phi- 
losophy, showing  in  many  ways  a  close  re- 
lationship to  modern  life.  Maeterlinck's 
occultism  ripens  into  speculation  on  the  fu- 
ture in  the  vein  of  the  past,  into  examina- 
tion of  immortality  and  chance.  He  is  in 
the  whirl  of  revolutionary  ideas,  and  be- 
cause of  this  we  are  prone  to  consider  him 
in  a  way  something  of  a  revolutionist.  If 
our  morality  is  anxious,  it  is  because  worn- 
out  virtue  has  too  long  been  holding  us  in 
thrall ;  and  it  is  also  anxious  because  no  one 
will  think  it  right  to  leave  vacant  in  life 
the  places  once  occupied  by  this  same  worn- 
out  virtue.  What  shall  take  its  place? 

Maeterlinck's  greatest  modern  voice  is 
heard  in  his  essay,  "The  Leaf  of  Olive" 
["The  Double  Garden"].*  Herein  he 

•^Reviewed  in  Atlantic,  94:273-74;  Bookman,   19: 
605-7;  Contemporary,  86;   150-52;  Athenaum,  1904, 

313 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

cries:  "We  live  in  pregnant  and  decisive 
times" ;  for  we  are  passing  from  a  religious 
period  into  one  of  increased  social  justice, 
wherein  our  ideal  is  not  circumscribed  by 
an  anthropomorphic  god  nor  limited  by 
a  creed,  but  stretches  into  infinity.  We 
fear  names,  not  knowing  the  full  import 
of  what  they  represent.  Yet  now,  in  the 
new  age  upon  us,  we  must  be  bold  in  search 
for  that  which  the  gods  have  heretofore 
concealed. 

VIII 

Maeterlinck  has  here  been  sketched 
only  in  the  essential  outlines;  the  time  has 
not  arrived  for  the  full  portrait.  He  is 
advancing  year  by  year,  and,  though  he 
dwells  far  away  from  us,  still,  in  his  liter- 
ary expression,  Maeterlinck's  thought  is 

2:70;  Independent,  57:1327-28.  See  Maeterlinck  on 
"Social  Revolution,"  Putnam,  i  -.643-47 ;  on  the  "Latin 
and  Teuton  Races,"  Putnam,  i  77-80. 

314 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 

upon  the  distinguishing  problems  of  the 
times.  His  philosophy  would  make  pos- 
sible the  exercise  of  universal  suffrage;  his 
calm  contemplation  of  the  forces  of  man- 
kind might  hasten  the  ideal  of  universal 
peace.  If  there  is  to  be  a  cataclysmic 
change  or  even  an  evolutionary  shifting 
in  our  religious  belief,  it  were  wise  to  have 
Emerson  and  Maeterlinck  to  guide  us  into 
a  harbor  where  we  may  take  bearings  of 
our  spiritual  assets,  even  if  we  may  not  be 
satisfied  with  their  transcendental  preach- 
ment. And,  where  Maeterlinck  is  so  in- 
vigorating lies  in  his  ability  to  convince  us 
that  after  every  one  of  our  superstitions 
has  been  taken  from  us,  we  shall  find  that 
all  these  years  they  have  had  nothing  what- 
ever to  do  with  the  exercise  of  our  funda- 
mental virtues.  That  is  his  significance  to 
the  modern  world, 


315 


APPENDIX   A 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

ARTICLES 

ARCHER,    WILLIAM — Maurice    Maeterlinck    and 

Mystery.    Critic,  37 :22O. 
Maeterlinck    as    a    Pessimistic    Playwright. 
Fortn.,  56 1346. 

BEAUNIER,  ANDRE — La  poesie  nouvelle.  Mercure  de 
France. 

BERG,  LEO — Maeterlinck.    Umschau,  1898,  No.  32!. 

BONNIER,  GASTON — La  Science  chez  Maeterlinck.  La 
Revue,  ser.  4,  vol.  69,  pp.  448-57,  Paris, 
1907. 

BORNSTEIN,  P. — Maurice  Maeterlinck.    Wiener  Rund- 
schau, II,  19,  20,  21.    Aug.-Sept.,  1897. 
Maurice  Maeterlinck.    Monatschrift  fur  neue 
Litteratur  und  Kunst,  II,  8,  9,  May,  June, 


BRAGDON,  C.— Maurice  Maeterlinck.     Critic,  45:156. 

BRUNNEMANN,  A. — Maurice  Maeterlinck.  Berlin 
Pan,  3rd  year,  4th  volume,  1898. 

BURTON,  R. — Maeterlinck.    Atlantic,  74:672. 

BUYSSE,  CYRIEL — Maurice  Maeterlinck.  Bibliogra- 
phy. Published  by  A.  de  R.,  and  G.  K. 
Notes  by  Dr.  Bergmans.  Den  Gulden- 
Winckel  [Baarn].  July  15,  1902. 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 


CHAMBERS,  E.  K. — Joyzelle.    Academy,  65:89-90. 

CHRYSALE — La  Vie  des  Abeilles.  Figaro,  July  14, 
1901. 

CORNUT,  SAMUEL — Maurice  Maeterlinck.  La  Se- 
maine  litteraire;  Geneve,  18,  25,  Jan.,  1902. 

COURTNEY,  W.  L. — Development  of  Maeterlinck.  Re- 
viewed in  Contemp.,  86:452-55,  1904. 

DAURIAC,  LIONEL — Un  stoicien  du  temps  present. 
Revue  Latine,  June  22,  1902. 

DE  FOREST,  K. — Visit  to  Maeterlinck's  Paris  Home. 
Harp.  B.,  35=49-51- 

DESCHAMPS — Maurice  Maeterlinck.  La  Plume,  Nov. 
15,  1890. 

DOWNER,  CHARLES — Maurice  Maeterlinck.  City  Col- 
lege Quarterly. 

DREUX,  ANDRE — Maurice  Maeterlinck.  Le  Corre- 
spondant,  May  25,  1897,  pp.  1096-1117. 

DREWS,  ARTHUR — Der  begrabene  Tempel.  Preus- 
sische  Jahrbiicher,  Band  no,  Heft  i. 

Das  Leben  der  Bienen.  Preussische  Jahr- 
biicher, Band  107,  Heft  3. 

Maurice  Maeterlinck  als  philosoph.  Preus- 
sische Jahrbiicher,  Band  99,  Heft  12. 

ETTLINGER,  ANNA — Maurice  Maeterlinck.  Beilage 
sur  Allgemeinen  Zeitung,  1901.  No.  issf. 

FLAT,  PAUL — Maurice  Maeterlinck.  Revue  Bleue, 
Oct.,  1903. 

FOVILLE,  JEAN  DE — Maurice  Maeterlinck.  Le  Cornet, 
17:305-16.  Paris,  1903. 

FYTE,  H.  HAMILTON — The  Reader  of  Plays  to  the 
Rescue,  igth  Cent.,  Aug.,  1902,  pp.  282-88. 
In  reply  to  Lord  who  was  partly  in  favour 
of  the  censor's  action. 


Bibliography 


GALTIER,  JOSEPH — Maurice  Maeterlinck  raconte  par 

lui-meme.    Le  Temps,  May  29,  1903. 
GEROTHWOHL,  MAURICE  A. — M.    Maeterlinck's    Joy- 

zelle.    Fortn.,  80:76-87.    July,  1903. 
GOURMONT,  R.  DE — Litterature.    Mercure  de  France, 

April,  1896. 
HOVEY  RICHARD — Maeterlinck,     iqth  Cent.,  37:491. 

Maeterlinck  as  a  Prophet  of  Joy.     Book- 
man, 9:64-66. 
HUNEKER,  JAMES — The  Evolution  of  a  Mystic.    N.  Y. 

Sun,  April  12,  1903. 
The  Romance  of  Maeterlinck.     N.  Y.  Sun, 

April  26,   1903. 

J.,  D.  M. — Maurice  Maeterlinck :  Mystic  and  Drama- 
tist.      Westminster      Rev.,      151 :4O9-4i6. 

April,  1899. 
JACKSON,  HOLBROOK — Maurice  Maeterlinck:  the  Man 

and  his  Work.     Bookman,  London,   1910, 

38:11-21. 
JANNASCH,    LILLY — Monna    Vanna    in    Lichte    der 

sozialen    Ethik.      Etische   Kultur,    Berlin, 

April  4,  1903- 
JERVEY,  M. — Maeterlinck  vs.  the  Conventional  Drama. 

Sewanee  Rev.,  n  :i87. 
LACOUR,  LEOPOLD — Maurice  Maeterlinck.  La  Grande 

Rev.,    22    (1902,    v.    3):    615-35.      Paris, 

1902,  June. 
LILLEY,    GEORGE — Debussy's    Pelleas    et    Melisande. 

Contemp.  Rev.,  Jan.,  1911,  pp.  61-70. 
LORD,  WALTER  FREWEN — The  Reader  of  Plays  to  the 

Rescue,     ipth  Cent.,  52 172-75,  July,  1902 ; 

also  52:289-91.  "Monna  Vanna  is  a  tawdry 

maudlin  version  of  Lady  Godiva." 
MAETERLINCK,  MADAME   (Georgette  Leblanc)   Later 

Heroines  of  Maeterlinck.    Fortn.,  93  .-48-56. 

Jan.,  1910. 
Macbeth  at  Saint- Wandrille.    Fortn,,  92 :6o5- 

18,  Oct.,  1909. 

3 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 


Maeterlinck's  Method  of  Life  and  Work. 
Contemp.  Rev.,  98:552-57;  also  in  Liv. 
Age,  267:771-75. 

Our  Production  of  Pelleas  et  Melisande. 
Century,  81 :325-37.  [Given  at  the  Abbey  of 
Saint-Wandrille,  September,  1910.  Ex- 
cellently illustrated.] 

MAETERLINCK,  MAURICE — Bibliography.  Bulletin  of 
Bibliography,  5  =49-52,  Oct.,  '07. 

Academy,  64:559. 

A.  B.  C.  of.    Academy,  June  2,  1900,  p.  471. 

Church  Quar.  Rev.,  54:381-401,  July,  1902. 
[Review.] 

Moralist  and  Artist.  Edinburgh  Rev.,  April, 
1901.  193  =350-77. 

Liv.  Age,  235:  193-205. 

Critic,  45:156-59. 

Dramatist  and  Mystic.    Outlook,  69:679-80. 

Mysticism  of.    Pilot  (Eng.),  July,  1900. 

Maeterlinck.    R.   Hovey.    Poet-Lore,  7:446. 

MAUCLAIR,  C. — Maurice  Maeterlinck.  Les  Hommes 
d'aujourd'hui.  No.  434.  Revue  Encyclo- 
pedique.  Paris. — Interieur.  R.  E.,  April 

i,  1895- 

La  Belgique  par  un  Francois.  Revue  Encyclo- 
pedique,  July  24,  1897. 

MAURRAS,  CH. — Le  Tresor  des  Humbles.  Revue 
Encyclopedique,  Sept.  26,  1896. 

MERCURE  DE  FRANCE — Tables  des  Tomes,  XXI  a  LIT 

1897-1904. 

Maeterlinck :  22 1586 ;  23  :i88 ;  29 1172 ;  29 1205  ; 
34:791;  36:260;  38:501;  43:233;  44:254; 
46:527;  47:222;  48:262;  49:208;  52:213; 
52  744- 

MIRBEAU,  OCTAVE — Maurice  Maeterlinck.  Figaro, 
Aug.  24,  1890. 


Bibliography 


MOCKEL,    A. — Les    Lettres    franchises    en    Belgique. 

Revue  Encyclopedique,  July  24,  1897. 
Une  ame  de  poete.    Revue  Wallonie,  Liege, 
June,  1894. 

MOELLER  VAN  DEN  BRUCK,  ARTHUR — Die  Zeitgenosscn, 
1906,  pp.  257-68. 

NEWMAN,  ERNEST — Maeterlinck  and  Music.  Atlantic, 
88:769-77,  Dec.,  1901  [Contrast  of  Mae- 
terlinck and  Wagner.] 

NORAT,  E. — Maeterlinck  moraliste.  Revue  Bleue, 
June  ii,  1904. 

OPPELN-BRONIKOWSKI,   F.   VON. 

Die  Quellen  von  Monna  Vanna.     National- 

zeitung  Sonntagsbeil,  44  von  1904. 
Maurice  Maeterlinck.    Biihne  und  Welt,  1-15 

Nov.,  1902. 
Maurice  Maeterlinck.   Die  Gesellschaft,  9-10, 

1898. 
Maurice   Maeterlinck   und   der   Mysticimus. 

Nord  und  Sud,  Dec.,  1898. 
Maeterlinck's     neueste     Werke.     National- 

zeitung,  19-21  July,  1904. 
Wie    Maeterlinck   arbeitet.    Berliner    Tage- 

blatt,  Feb.  19,  1904. 

OSGOOD,  HAMILTON — Maeterlinck  and  Emerson. 
Arena,  15:563-73,  March,  1896.  [Contains 
a  translation  of  the  Essay  on  Emerson.] 

PASTORE,  ANNIBALE — L'evoluzione  di  Maurizio  Mae- 
terlinck. Nuova  antologia,  Ser.  4,  v.  104, 
pp.  202-26.  Rome,  1903  [March  16]. 

PATRICK,  M.  M. — Maeterlinck,  the  Belgian  Shake- 
speare. Chaut.,  40:155-57. 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 


PTTELPS,  WILLIAM  LYON — Maeterlinck  and  Robert 
Browning.  Academy,  64:594-95,  June  13, 
1903- 

PHILLIPS,  ROLAND — Talk  with  Maeterlinck.  Book 
Buyer,  24:449-53.  July,  1902. 

PILON,  EDMOND.     Maurice  Maeterlinck.    Mercure  dc 

France,  April,   1896. 

Maurice  Maeterlinck.  La  Plume,  May  I, 
1902. 

PUTTKAMER,  ALBERTA  VON.  Monna  Vanna  und  der 
kiinstlerisch  -  philosophische  Werdegang 
Maeterlincks.  Beilage  sur  Allgemeinen 
Zeitung,  1902,  No.  236  f. 

RAVA,  M. — Maurice  Maeterlinck,  Poeta  e  Filosofo. 
Nuova  antologia,  Feb.  I,  1897. 

REUTER,  GABRIELE — Rhodope  und  Monna  Vanna. 
Tag,  April  5,  1903. 

REVIEW  OF  M.  HARRY'S  BOOK  ON  MAETERLINCK — Sat. 
Rev.,  110:663-64. 

RICHTER,  HELENE — Das  Urbild  der  Monna  Vanna. 
Neue  Freie  Presse,  April  29,  1904. 

ROD,  EDOUARD — Maeterlinck's  Essay  on  the  Life  of 

the  Bee.     [Tr.,  Prof.  F.  C  de  Sumichrast. 

(Harvard.)]  International  M.,  1902,  5:431- 

447- 
ROFES,    ARTHUR    R. — Maeterlinck.      Contemp.    Rev., 

77:422-36.     March,   1900. 

SANBORN,  ALVAN  F. — Maurice  Maeterlinck  and  his 
Home  at  St.  Wandrille.  Munsey,  46 :628-34, 
February,  1909. 

Maeterlinck  in  his  Normandy  Home. 
Book  News  Monthly,  March,  1909,  p. 
481.  [This  was  a  Maeterlinck  number 
of  the  magazine,  containing  an  article  by 
Cornelius  Weygandt  on  "Maeterlinck: 
Dramatist  and  Seer,"  and  a  Bibliography. 

6 


Bibliography 


SCHLAF,  JOHANNES — Maeterlinck.  Die  Literatur, 
vol.  2.  Berlin,  1907. 

SEGUR,  NICOLAS — Maurice  Maeterlinck.  La  Revue, 
68:41-54,  1907. 

SLOSSON,  EDWIN  E. — Maurice  Maeterlinck.  Inde- 
pendent, 70:933-45,  May  4,  1911.  [Biblio- 
graphy.] 

SOUZA,  ROBERT  DE — Maeterlinck.  Mercure  de  France, 
Jan.,  1899. 

STEINER,  EDWARD  A. — Visit  to  Maeterlinck.  Outlook, 
69:700-3,  Nov.  16,  1911. 

STOCKES,  DR.  PHIL.  HELENE — Maeterlinck  als 
Dichter  der  Neuen  Frau.  Westermann's 
Monatschefte,  Dec.,  1907. 

STROWSKI  DE  LINKA,  F. — Maurice  Maeterlinck.  Rev. 
Thomiste,  Annee  7,  pp.  297-316,  Paris, 
1899. 

SYLVESTRE,  M. — Maeterlinck.     Open  Court,  17:116. 

SYMONS,  ARTHUR — Maeterlinck  as  a  Mystic.  Contemp. 
Rev.,  72:349.  [See  also  Symons'  "A  New 
Art  of  the  Stage,"  in  "Studies  in  Seven 
Arts."] 

THOROLD,  ALGAR — Maeterlinck  as  Moralist.  Indep. 
Rev.,  8:184-97.  Feb.,  1906.  [Contained 
in  his  "Six  Masters  in  Disillusion."  Dut- 
ton,  1909.] 

UZANNE,  OCTAVE — La  Thebaide  de  Maurice  Mae- 
terlinck. £cho  de  Paris,  Sept.  7,  1902. 

VALLETTE,  A. — Pelleas  et  Melisande  et  la  critique 
officielle.  Mercure  de  France,  July,  1893. 

VAN  HAMEL — Maurice  Maeterlinck.  Gids,  January, 
1900. 


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VAN  KEYMEULEN — Maurice  Maeterlinck  et  son 
CEuvre.  Revue  Encydopedique,  Jan.  15, 
1893- 

VAN  LERBERGHE,  CHARLES — Notes  sur.      Mercure  de 

France,  i6:vii:i9p8;  74:369-85,  Aug.,  1908. 

[Fernand    Severin.]    (In   this   article   are 

excerpt  of  letters  from  M.) 

Albert  Mockel.   Mercure  de  France,  50:5-35. 

April,   1904 — Bibliography. 
— On  Maurice  Maeterlinck.    Wallonie,  1889. 

VON  ADOLF  KELLER — Maeterlinck  als  philosoph. 
Neue  Zurcher  Zeitung,  Zurich,  Dec.  28-29, 
1903. 

ZIELER,  GUSTAV — Maurice  Maeterlinck.  Velhagen  and 
Klasings  Monatshefte,  Aug.,  1902. 


BOOKS 

ARCHER,  WILLIAM — Study  and  Stage.  Richards,  iSpv 

BEAUNIER,  ANDRE — La  Poesie  nouvelle.  Soc.  du 
Mercure  de  France,  1903. 

BEVER,  AD.  VAN — Maurice  Maeterlinck.  Bibliotheque 
Internationale  d'fidition.  1904  [Les  Cele- 
brites  d'Aujourd'hui].  Contains  bibliog- 
raphy. 

— [et  Leautaud,  P.]     Poetes  d'Aujourd'hui. 
Soc.  du  Mercure  de  France,  1900. 

BRISSON,  ADOLPHE — La  Comedie  litteraire.  Plon, 
1895. 

BUSCHMANN,  JOHANNES — Maurice  Maeterlinck:  eine 
Studie.  Leipzig,  1908. 

COURTNEY,  W.  L. — The  Development  of  Maurice 
Maeterlinck,  and  other  Sketches  of 
Foreign  Writers.  Richards,  1904. 

CRAWFORD,  V.  M. — Studies  in  Foreign  Literature. 
Duckworth,  1899. 

GILBERT,  EUGENE — En  marge  de  quelques  pages. 
Plon,  1900. 

GOURMONT,  REMY  DE — Le  Livre  des  Masques.  Soc. 
du  Mercure  de  France,  1897. 

HALE,  EDWARD  EVERETT,  JR. — Dramatists  of  To-day. 
Holt,  1905. 

9 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 


HARRY,  GERARD — Maurice  Maeterlinck.  [Les  ficri- 
vains  frangais  de  la  Belgique.  Bruxelles, 
1909.  (The  English  translation,  published 
by  George  Allen  &  Sons,  was  done  by  Al- 
fred Allinson,  and  contains  two  essays  by 
Maeterlinck.) 

HEINE,  ANSELMA — Maeterlinck.  Die  Dichtung,  Bd. 
33.  Berlin,  1905. 

HENDERSON,  ARCHIBALD— Interpreters  of  Life  and  the 
Modern  Spirit.  Kennerley,  1911. 

HORRENT,  DESIR£ — fieri vains  Beiges  d'aujourd'hui. 
Lacomblez,  1904. 

HOVEY,  RICHARD — Translations.  With  Introduction. 
Dodd,  Mead,  1911. 

HUNEKER,  JAMES — Iconoclasts.    Scribner,  1905. 
— Egoists.    Scribner,  1909. 

HURET,  JULES — Enquete  sur  1'fivolution  litteraire. 
Charpentier,  1891. 

JACOBS,  DR.  MOTHY — Maeterlinck :  Eine  Kritische 
Studie  zur  Einfiihlerung  in  seine  Werke. 
Leipzig,  1902. 

LAZARE,  BERNARD — Figures  contemporains.  Perrin, 
1895- 

LEMAITRK,  JULES — Impressions  de  theatre.  8°  serie. 
Paris,  1895. 

LENEVEU,  GEORGES — Ibsen  et  Maeterlinck.  Ollendorff, 
1902. 

LORENZ,  MAX — Die  Litteratur  aus  jahrhundertende. 
1900.  pp.  44-65.  Stuttgart.  [Essays  on 
Naturalism,  Hauptmann,  and  Maeter- 
linck.] 

MEYER-BENFEY,  H. — Moderne  Religion,  Schleier- 
macher,  Maeterlinck.  Leipzig,  1902. 

10 


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MIEZNER,  VON  W.— Eine  literar  psychologische 
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POPPENBERG,  F. — Maeterlinck.  (Modern  Essays,  30.) 
Berlin,  1903. 

RECOLM,   CHR.— L'Anarchie  litteraire.   Perrin,   1898. 
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SEAMAN,  OWEN — Borrowed  Plumes.  Holt.  [Parody 
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SEHRING,  LUDWIG — Maeterlinck  als  Philosoph  und 
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been  made  by  Herr  von  Oppeln-Bro- 
nikowski. ) 

SOUZA,  ROBERT  DE — La  Poesie  populaire  et  le  lyrisme 
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38:9-". 

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et  gens  qui  passent.  £cho  de  Paris.  Sept. 
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VAN  DYK,  DR. — Maurice  Maeterlinck.     Ein  Studie 

door.  Ten  Hoel,  1897. 

WALKLEY,  A.  B.— Frames  of  Mind.    Richards,  1899. 
ii 


APPENDIX   B 

Bibliographical  Notes 

For  the  benefit  of  the  reader  who  might  wish  to 
trace  further  the  artistic  atmosphere  surrounding 
Maurice  Maeterlinck,  when  he  first  went  to  Paris,  I 
have  condensed  the  following  information  and  refer- 
ences, taken  from  the  monumental  work  by  M. 
Catulle  Mendes,  "Rapport  a  M.  Le  Ministre  de  1'In- 
struction  Publique  et  des  Beaux-Arts  sur  le  Mouve- 
ment  Poetique  Franqais  de  1867  a  1900,  pre- 
cede de  Reflexions  sur  la  Personnalite  de  1'Esprit 
Poetique  de  France,  suivi  d'un  Dictionnaire  Biblio- 
graphique  et  Critique  et  d'une  nomenclature  chron- 
ologique  de  la  Plupart  des  Poetes  Franqais  du 
XIXe  Siecle"  (Paris,  Imprimerie  Nationale,  1902). 
Each  poet's  name  is  accompanied  by  a  list  of  his 
works,  with  dates  of  publication,  followed  by  quoted 
opinions.  Regarding  opinions  on  Maeterlinck  him- 
self, see  articles : 

Revue   Blanche    (Lucien    Muhlfeld),    Nov., 

1891. 

Floreal  (Charles  Delchevalerie),  Jan.,  1892. 
Mercure  de  France    (A.   Fontainas),   July, 

1894. 
*Les  Hommes  d'aujourd'hui.     Camille  Mau- 

clair. 
Mercure  de  France  (Edmond  Pilon),  April, 

1896. 
*Le  poeme  populaire  et  le  lyrisme  sentimental 

(1899).    Robert  de  Souza. 

13 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 


AJALBERT,  JEAN.     [See  La  Plume,  1901,  p.  356.! 

"Preface  to  "Sur  le  vif"  (1885).  Robert  Caze. 
*Anthologie    des    Poetes    franqais    du    XI Xe 

siecle  (1887-1888).     Gustave  GefTroy. 
*Profils  et  Portraits  (1891).  Marcel  Fouquier. 
*=Books. 

LEROY,  GREGOIRE. 

*Propos  de  litterature  (1894).  Albert  Mockel. 

MALLARME,  STEPHANE. 

*The  Symbolist  Movement.    Arthur  Symons. 
*Twenty  Years  in  Paris.    Sherard. 
Mallarme's   Salon.     F.   Grierson.     Atlantic, 

92 :839-43. 

*Les  Poetes  maudits  (1884).     Paul  Verlaine. 
*Anthologie    des    Poetes    franqais    du    XIXC 

siecle  (1887-1888).    Franqois  Coppee. 
*Entretiens   politiques   et     litteraires     (Aug., 

1891).     Francis  Viele-Griffin. 
Revue  Blanche  (Lucien  Muhlfeld).  Feb.  25, 

1893. 
*Conferences  sur  Stephane  Mallarme  (1893). 

Camille  Mauclair. 

La  Plume  (1893).  Achille  Delaroche. 
*L'£volution  de  la  poesie  lyrique  (1894). 

Ferdinand  Brunetiere. 

*Nos  Maitres    (1895).     Teodor  de  Wyzewa. 
*Le    Livre    des    Masques,    ire    serie    (1896). 

Remy  de  Gourmont. 
*Essai  sur  le  Naturisme  (1896).  Maurice  Le 

Blond 

"Aspects  (1897).    Adophe  Rette. 
Le  Journal  (Paul  Adam).    Sept.  19,  1898. 
L'flcho   de  Paris    (Paul   et  Victor   Margu- 

eritte).    Sept.  17,  1898. 
*Stephane    Mallarme:      Un    Heros     (1899). 

Albert  Mockel. 
L'Effort  (Joachim  Gasquet).    Jan.  15,  1900. 

'4 


Bibliography 


MAUCLAIR,  CAMILLE. 

*  Portraits  du  prochain  siecle  (1894).  Maurice 

Beaubourg. 

La  Nervie  (fimile  Lecomte).    Nov.,  1894. 
*L'Ermitage   (1895).  Edmond  Pilon. 
*Poetes  d'aujourd'hui  (1900).  Paul  Leautaud. 

MENDES,  CATULLE. 

L' Artiste  (Theodore  de  Banville).     Feb.  I, 

1864. 
Le  Constitutionnel  (Nestor  Roqueplan).  Feb. 

15,  1864. 

*Camees  parisiens  (1866).  Theodore  de  Ban- 
ville. 

*Rapport  sur  le  progres  des  lettres,  par  MM. 
Sylvestre,  de  Sacy,  Paul  Feval,  Th.  Gau- 
tier  et  Ed.  Thierry  (1868). 
Le  Temps  (Francisque  Sarcey),  1870. 
Le  Figaro    (Barbey   d'Aurevilly),  June  23, 

1872. 
Le   Temps    (Francisque   Sarcey),  June  24, 

1872. 

*Lettres  (1876),  Guy  de  Maupassant. 
Le  Gaulois  (Paul  Roche),  March,  1877. 
Le  Bien  Public  (fimile  Zola),  March,  1877. 
Le  Temps  (Francisque  Sarcey),  March,  1877. 
Le  National   (Theodore  de  Banville),  1877. 
Le    Journal    officiel     (Alphonse     Daudet), 

March,  1877. 

"Impressions  de  nature  et  d'art   (Mme.   Al- 
phonse Daudet),  1879. 
Le  Figaro   (Auguste  Vitu),  Nov.,  1882. 
Le   Temps    (Francisque   Sarcey),    Nov.   20, 

1882. 

*Lettres  (Stephane  Mallarme),  Dec.  8,  1884. 
*Rosa  Mystica  (Preface.  Stanislas  de  Guaita), 

1885. 

Le  Figaro  (Octave  Mirbeau),  June  29,  1888. 
*Nos  Poetes  (1888),  Jules  Tellier. 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 


*L'Enquete  sur  1'fivolution  litteVairc  (1891), 

Paul  Hervieu. 
*Profils   et    Portraits    (1891),    Marcel    Fou- 

quier. 
Mercure  de  France  (Albert  Samain),  Nov., 

1892. 

*La  Vie  litteraire  (1892),  Anatole  France. 
Lettre  (Paul  Verlaine),  Sept.  13,  1892. 
Le  Gil-Bias  (Guy  de  Maupassant),  1893. 
Le  Temps  (Ad.),  Dec.  29,  1893. 
Revue  Blanche    (Pierre   Veber),   April    15, 

1893- 
La  Nouvelle  Revue   (Leon  Daudet),  July, 

1894- 

*£tudes  et  Portraits  (1894),  Paul  Bourget. 
Revue    Blanche    (Lucien    Muhlfeld),    June, 

1895- 

*Confession   (1895),  Paul  Verlaine. 
Journal  (Edmond  Rostand),  Feb.  23,  1895. 
Revue  Blanche  (Paul  Adam),  May  15,  1896. 
Mercure  de  France  (Rachilde),  May,  1896. 
Revue  Blanche    (Gustave  Kahn),   April   i, 

1896. 
Mercure  de  France  (A.-Ferdinand  Herold), 

June,  1896. 
*L'Art    au    Theatre    (Georges    Courteline), 

Preface,  1897. 
Discours  prononce  a  la  soiree  offerte  a  M. 

Catulle   Mendes  par  les   jeunes   ecrivains 

(April  22,  1897). 
La  Revue  d'Art  Dramatique    (1898),   Fer- 

nand  Weyl. 

Le  Figaro  (Henry  Fouquier),  Oct.  29,  1898. 
Le    Temps    (Francisque    Sarcey),    Oct.    31, 

1898. 
L'Scho  de  Paris  (Lucien  Muhlfeld),   Oct., 

1898. 

Le  Matin  (Robert  Gangnat),  Oct.,  1898. 
Us  Debate  (fimile  Faguet),  Oct.,  1898. 

16 


Bibliography 


Le  Figaro  (Henry  Fouquier),  Dec.  7,  1898. 
Le   Temps    (Francisque    Sarcey),    Dec.    12, 

1898. 
L'£cho  de  Paris   (Lucien  Muhlfeld),  Dec., 

1898. 
La  Revue  Naturiste  (Saint-Georges  de  Bou- 

helier),  Feb.,  1900. 

MIKHAEL,  EPHRAIM. 

La  Revue   independante    (Teodor   de    Wy- 

zewa),  1887. 

*L'Ermitage  (1894),  Edmond  Pilon. 
L 'Effort  (Pierre  Quillard),  April,  1897. 
L'Effort    (Emmanuel    Delbousquet),    April, 

1897- 
*Le  Livre  des  Masques,  2e  serie,  1898.   Remy 

de  Gourmont. 
*Poetes  d'aujourd'hui  (1900),  A.  Van  Bever. 

MOCKEL,  ALBERT 

La  Jeune  Belgique   (Albert  Giraud),  Dec., 

1891. 
Revue    Blanche     (Charles     Delchevalerie), 

March  25,  1892. 

*Portraits    du    prochain    siecle    (1894),    A.- 
Ferdinand Herold. 

PILON,  EDMOND 

Le  Reveil  (1896),  Albert  Arnay. 

Mercure   de   France    (Henri    de   Regnier), 
1896. 

Revue  Blanche  (Gustave  Kahn),  1896. 
*L'Ermitage  (1896),  Lionel  des  Rieux. 
*La  Treve-Dieu  (1898),  Yves  Berthou. 
*L'CEuvre  (1898),  Maurice  Perres. 

Lettre  (1898),  Stephane  Mallarme. 

Lettre  (1898),  Francis  Jammes. 

QUILLARD,  PIERRE. 

*Portraits    du    prochain    siecle    (1894),    A.- 
Ferdinand Herold. 

17 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 


*Le  Livre  des  Masques,  ie  serie.    Remy  de 

Gourmont. 

Le  Temps  (Gaston  Deschamps),  1897. 
Revue  Blanche   (Gustave   Kahn),   Nov.   15, 

1897- 
Mercure    de    France  (Henri    de    Regnier), 

1897- 

*Poetes     d'aujourd'hui      (Paul     Leautaud), 
1900. 

REGNIER,  HENRI  DE 

*La   Litterature   de   tout   a   1'heure    (1889), 

Charles  Morice. 
*Portraits  du  prochain  siecle  (1894)  Camille 

Mauclair. 
Mercure  de  France   (Henri  Albert),  Aug., 

1894- 
*Propos  de  litterature  (1894),  Albert  Mockel. 

Les  Jeunes  (Rene  Doumic),  1894. 
*L'Ermitage  (1895),  Edmond  Pilon. 
*Aspects  (1896),  Adolphe  Rette. 
*Le  Livre  des  Masques,  irc  serie.     Remy  de 

Gourmont. 
*La    Vie    et    les    Livres     (1896),    Gaston 

Deschamps. 

*Divagations  (1897),  Stephane  Mallarme. 
Revue  Blanche   (Gustave   Kahn),   April    i, 

1897- 
Mercure  de  France  (Pierre  Quillard),  Feb., 

1899- 
*Poetes  d'aujourd'hui  (1900),  Paul  Leautaud. 

REMY  DE  GOURMONT 

*Enquete  sur  revolution  litteraire   (1891,  p. 

245),  Pierre  Quillard. 
*Enquete  sur  1'fivolution  litteraire   (1891,  p. 

133)  G.  Albert  Aurier. 
*L' 'Academic    Franfaise     (Saint-Georges    de 

Bouhelier),  Feb.,  1893. 

18 


Bibliography 


*L'Ermitage  (Edmond  Pilon),  1894. 
*Mercure  de  France  (Marcel  Schwob),  July, 

1894- 
*Essai  sur  le  Naturisme  (1896),  Maurice  Le 

Blond. 

Germinal  (Louis  Payen),  Feb.  15,  1900. 
Mercure  de  France  (Y.  Rambosson),  1900. 

RIMBAUD,  ARTHUR.     (See  Paul  Verlaine.) 

*Les  Poetes  maudits   (1884),  Paul  Verlaine. 

La  Revue  des  Deux-Mondes.   F.  Brunetiere. 

*La   Litterature    de   tout   a   1'heure    (1889), 

Charles  Morice. 

*Nos  Contemporains.    Jules  Lemaitre. 
*Aspects  (1897),  Adolphe  Rette. 
*Divagations  (1897),  Stephane  Mallarme. 
*La    Vie    de   Jean-Arthur    Rimbaud    (1898), 

Paterne  Berrichon. 

Revue  Blanche  (Gustave  Kahn),  Aug.,  1898. 
*L'£lite   (1899),  Georges  Rodenbach. 
*Poetes  d'aujourd'hui  (1900),  A.  van  Bever. 

RODENBACH,  GEORGES. 

*Anthologie   des   Poetes   Frangais   du   XIXe 

siecle  (1887-1888),  Frangois  Coppee. 
*La  Vie  et  les  Livres,  2e  serie    (1895),  Gaston 

Deschamps. 

Revue  Blanche   (Gustave  Kahn),  1896. 
Revue  Encyclopedique    (Charles   Maurras), 

March  28,   1896. 
Mercure  de  France   (Francis  Viele-Griffin), 

May,  1896. 

Mercure  de  France  (Charles  Merki),  1898. 
*La  Vogue  (Edmond  Pilon),  1899. 
*Poetes  d'aujourd'hui  (1900),  Paul  Leautaud. 

SCHWOB,  MARCEL. 

L'£cho  de  Paris  (Anatole  France),  1892. 
Revue   Blanche    (Lucien    Muhlfeld),    June, 

1894- 
Mercure  de  France  (Maurice  Maeterlinck), 

Aug.,  1894- 

19 


Maurice  Maeterlinck 


VAN  LERBERGHE,  CHARLES. 

*Portraits  du  porchain  siecle  (1894),  Valere 

Gille. 
Revue  Blanche  (Gustave  Kahn),  March  i, 

1898. 

L'Ermitage  (Henri  Davray),  June,  1898. 
Mercure  de  France  (Alfred  Vallette),  Oct., 

1890.     [Maeterlinck  and  C.  v.  L.] 
*Monographie  (Albert  Mockel),  1904. 
Mercure  de  France.    XXVI 1227 ;  XXX  793 ; 
XXXI  :258;  L:S75- 

VERHAEREN,  SMILE. 

Floreal  (Leon  Paschal),  Jan.,  1892. 

Revue   Blanche    (Lucien    Muhlfeld),    Nov., 

1893- 

*£tude  sur  Verhaeren  (1895),  Albert  Mockel. 
*£tude.     (See  above.)      Preface  by   Francis 

Viele-Griffin. 
Revue  Blanche  (Henri  de  Regnier),  Mar;h 

i,  1895- 

Le  Reveil  (1896).    Albert  Arnay. 
L'Art  jeune  (1896),  Georges  Rency. 
L'Art    jeune    (1896,    March    15),    Camille 

Lemonnier. 
La  Revue  Encyclopcdique    (Ch.   Maurras), 

March  28,  1896. 
*Le    Livre   des    Masques    (1896),    Remy   de 

Gourmont. 

L'Ermitage  (1900),  Henri  Gheon. 
*Poetes  d'aujourd'hui  (1900),  A.  Van  Sever. 
L'Humaintt  nouvelle  (Georges  Polti),  July, 

1900. 

La  Plume,  1901,  p.  404. 
La  Plume  (Edmond  Pilon),  Jan.-June,  1904; 

PP-  33.  99- 

VILLIERS  DE  L'lsLE-AoAM  (Auguste  de)  [1838-1 

Le  Temps  (Francisque  Sarcey),  1870. 
*A  Rebours    (J.-K.  Huysmans). 

20 


Bibliography 


*Dedicaces  (1889),  Paul  Verlaine. 

Mercure  de  France  (Remy  de  Gourmont), 
March,  1890. 

La  Nouvelle  Revue  (Gustave  Guiches),  May, 

1890. 

*Nos  Maitres  (1895),  Teodor  de  Wyzewa. 
*L'£lite  (1889),  Georges  Rodenbach. 
*Thesis   (1900),  Alexis  von  Kraemer. 
*Symbolist  Movement  (Arthur  Symons). 
*Egoists  (James  Huneker). 

[Maeterlinck  was  also  influenced  by  Edmond 
Picard,  and  by  Hello,  Georges  Minne,  and 
Odilon  Redon.] 

The  reader  is  advised  to  look  through  the 
files  of  the  following  magazines  covering 
the  years  1886-1900 :  La  Plume,  La  Pleiade, 
Le  Parnasse  de  la  Jeune  Belgique  (An- 
thology) ,  La  Jeune  Belgique,  La  Wallonie, 
La  Societe  Nouvelle,  La  Conque,  Floreal, 
La  Reveil  (Gand),  Mercure  de  France,  Le 
Figaro,  Nouvelle  Revue,  L'ldee  Moderne, 
Le  Coq  Rouge,  L'Aube,  Revue  Encyclope- 
dique,  Revue  de  Paris,  L'lndependance 
Beige,  La  Vogue,  Wiener  Rundschau,  Die 
Insel. 

The  reader  is  also  referred  to  prefaces  by 
Maeterlinck  in  the  following: 

Exposition  des  CEuvres  de  M.  Franz,  M. 
Melchers.  1895. 

Jules  Laforgue,  by  Camille  Mauclair.  1896. 

The  Cave  of  Illusion,  by  Alfred  Sutro. 


21 


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